iSay
by Stessa
Summary: FF. Cam. She lives to right the wrongs. But she's never righted the wrongs in her own past, those that happened when she was too scared to be herself. Too scared to be with Sam and went with Freddie instead. Maybe it's not too late to right those too.
1. Part One

**iSay**

written by _Stessa._

-

**Stupid People, Where You Gonna Go, Go, Go. **

"Fucking retard!" Carly Shay, age 27, cursed under her breath as she made a right turn pass a corner where a young dude wearing baggy jeans big enough to fit thirty days of crap in them was having a cigarette or something much else with his just as stupid friends. _Some people are just enormous jerks_, Carly thought to herself as she just barely dug beneath the flying rests of the cigarette which the dude had carelessly thrown across his shoulder in another moment of complete idiocy.

She didn't get how some people could be so rude and unthoughtful. It wasn't like it was so hard to put the stub of the cigarette into the trash can – hell, they were placed with no more than five feet between them on the sidewalk everywhere in the city. How could it be so hard to use them? It would definitely make the world – and in the small picture, Seattle – a better place to live.

_Great_, _I'm starting to think that saving Seattle won't even be doable,_ Carly continued to muse to herself with that tragic sigh of hers. It's not like she asked for that much most days, but would it be too much if she was able to walk along the sidewalk without getting cigarette stubs thrown in her face? Without stepping in dog crap that people were too lazy and stupid to pick up? Hell, without having to curse at another idiot at the market who stepped into the_ Limit 10_ line with more than ten items?

It would just be so much easier, and so much nicer to live in this world, if people knew how to behave! _Those fuckheads_, Carly confirmed in her thoughts, as she nodded hello to the doorman in her building.

"Good morning Ms. Shay. Can't wait for the show tonight."

"I hope I won't disappoint you, Herman." Carly smiled, before making her way to the elevator.

It was people especially like that kid with the baggy pants and the cigarette who just really ticked her off. People who didn't care shit about anyone but themselves; who thought that the world revolved around them. It was people like that that she just couldn't stand.

And people like that who made sure she earned her living.

Locking herself into her seventh floor apartment, Carly threw her jacket on the hanger and kicked off her killer high heels. She'd met Spencer for lunch today, but now she really had to get some sleep before she had to be at work tonight. She was meeting Freddie at nine to go over this evening's material, and she could not be late to their meeting yet again.

During a sleepless night in college, she and Freddie had taken over the school's radio and had an all-night show for everyone of their fellow students, who – like them – couldn't sleep. It hadn't been hard for them to find anything to talk about; there'd been plenty of things about school to discuss and classmates had soon started texting them to get them to talk about something else. It was easy because _iCarly _really prepared them for this and it came natural to them to entertain people.

After that they'd frequently been on air and after college – though Carly had educated herself to become a lawyer for the poor and needy – she and Freddie had been offered their own platform at _Freedom 570 KVI _right in their home town Seattle, and Carly's dreams had quickly been altered from helping the poor and needy in law to making the world a better place through her own radio show. Since then they'd been on air Monday to Friday, from 12pm to 4am, talking to insomniacs in all of Seattle about this and that – but mostly about those retards that Carly desperately wanted gone from the world because they have no respect for it.

She and Freddie – they were on _Carly Says_.

-

_**CARLY SAYS. **_

_Freddie: You ready Carly? There's five seconds, four, three, two, one. And we're live! _

_Carly: Hello fellow insomniacs and whatnot! Some of you are working, and some of you just can't sleep, but don't feel bad, because here at Carly Says, we have the same problem. _

_Freddie: That is right. Tonight we're going to entertain you with – what exactly are we going to talk about tonight, Carly? _

_Carly: Tonight we're talking about one of the things I hate the most. Some of you might think, oh no, she says this every night, but to be honest, this really is the top of my hate-the-most list, and I think I speak for everyone here at Carly Says when I say that smoking in public just is not the right thing to do. _

_Freddie: Oh no. You sound angry, Carly. Do I smell another personal story coming on? _

_Carly: Sure you do, Freddie. And I'll let everyone know what gruesome thing that happened to me on my way home from lunch with my brother earlier – but first! Let's have a commercial break. _

_-_

**Give Me That Strange Relationship. Never Felt Pleasure and Pain Like This. **

Carly didn't know how it had all happened so fast, but she was pretty contend with the job that she had and the pay check was fine too. The best part of it was the she got to fight for what she believed in: righting the world by taking them out – one retard at a time.

She just had no idea how she ended up here. The only thing in her life was the occasional lunch with her brother and work with Freddie. She slept when most people were up, when the day was busy and light, and she got up to go to work, when most people settled in at home. Her true love was _Carly Says _and unfortunately it was also her only.

After a long but weird love affair with Freddie through high school and some of college, the two of them broke up because it just wasn't working. There were several reasons for that, most of them which Carly did not even dare to think of, and now they were best friends and co-workers and Carly had barely been on a date since they split.

She liked to blame this on the odd hours, but if she had to be honest with herself – and she did have to; dishonesty was also one of the things she hated the most in this world – work really wasn't the reason. She could meet someone if she really wanted to, but there was always one reason – or was it person? - who really stood in the way of her finding happiness, and it was a person she used to call her best friend.

She just never could get over the way things ended between her and Sam, so quickly and awkwardly – and so painfully.

-

_**CARLY SAYS. **_

_Carly: And we're back here at Carly Says, and if someone is just tuning in on their old kitchen radio, we are, tonight, discussing the horrible habit that is smoking in public. _

_Freddie: Tell us what happened to you, Carly, you did say that there was a personal story involved in this mess. _

_Carly: As always, Freddie, there is a story. So. Today, or as it, correctly is, yesterday, I was walking home from lunch with my dear brother Spencer – on another note, you might know who he is, Spencer Shay, the artist – and I was going home to prepare myself for tonight's show. And right as I pass by the corner of Fifth Avenue and Pike St. I get this cigarette stub thrown right in my face, just outta nowhere! Can you believe it? _

_Freddie: What happened then? _

_Carly: Well, naturally I wanted to tell the dude in his lame ass pants off, but I actually kept my control instead and maturely mumbled 'fucking retard' beneath my breath. _

_Freddie: You really didn't tell him off? I thought you at least would have flipped him the finger! _

_Carly: No way, not even that did I do! _

_Freddie: Wow, that must definitely have caused you great restraint! _

_Carly: Sure it did. But anyway, that's not the point of my story, the point is, that there are these trash cans everywhere, and let's face it, they're not there to beautify the streets, they aren't exactly pretty, so why does everyone still keep throwing stubs – and something so much worse on the streets? I guess my question for you tonight, dear listeners, is whether or not I am the only one who finds these cigarette stubs everywhere highly disturbing and if we should do something about it and actually give out tickets for throwing things like that one the street? Please call us at 206-421-5757 and tell us your opinion on cigarette stubs. We'll be right back after a short break. _

-

**Jealousy, Look at Me Now, Jealousy, You Got Me Somehow. **

"You're on fire tonight, Carls." Freddie mumbled and handed her a bottled water from the small refrigerator they had in their studio.

Carly unscrewed the lit and quickly gulped down half the water. "I'm pissed off." she mumbled, placing the water on the table and pulling her long brown hair into a high ponytail before she adjusted her earphones. Her hair had a bad tendency of getting caught in the wires and whatnot, so she usually kept it away from her face.

Freddie took a handful of peanuts from the table and threw them in his mouth. "How was Spencer?"

"He's good." Carly replied and kicked back in her chair. This was a rather long commercial break and after that they were playing a song. "He's working on some new sculpture for Denny Park and he's really excited about it."

Freddie offered her a small smile, "How's Monica and the baby?"

Carly made a face. "Good."

She didn't know what was worse – that her brother, who could only be described as rather special, had actually met someone and managed to get married and was expecting his first child before she, or that she was actually jealous because of it. She shouldn't be, should she? She hated that too. She hated that so much, and it was even worse to be jealous towards someone she cared so deeply about.

"Did you really get a cigarette stub in your face?" Freddie questioned then.

She reached for her pen on the table and started clicking it the way she always did when she got anxious. "I ducked." - there was a pause - "But that doesn't mean I can't be pissed off! Those damn kids, I'm telling you Freddie, you and I, we were never that rude in high school. No one we hung out with would ever be rude enough to crowd an entire sidewalk with their friends and throw trash everywhere."

Before Carly could even manage to regret having said those words, Freddie had replied, "Hey, you know Sam would've."

And then the awkward silence rose between them. Every time one of them was careless enough to actually mention Sam, tension rose between the two of them, and everything felt weird. None of them spoke to Sam anymore – that ended in high school. Carly because she just couldn't handle it and Freddie because he supported her as the good boyfriend he was.

Not working things out with Sam was one of the things Carly regretted most in her life. There had been plenty of stupid things done in her past, but splitting like that with Sam was probably the most idiotic thing she had ever done. One of her least fine moments, and she usually lived for good behaviour.

Freddie realized his mistake too late. "Oh. I'm sorry, Carly, I didn't mean to-"

Carly waved her hand at him to stop his apology. It wasn't like he wasn't allowed to talk about Sam, after all, they had been best friends for so long, she couldn't ask that of him, even if she preferred to pretend like Sam had never really existed. And though she never asked him aloud to not mention her, she still hoped deep within that he wouldn't.

Swallowing loudly, she stared into the table and shook her shoulders. "Don't worry about it." she whispered, then looking up at him with a small smile. "It's – in the past. You can talk about her."

Freddie didn't look like he believed her.

She forced on a bigger smile. "Don't worry, Freddie! I'm OK! Let's just... let's just do our show, okay?"

Still not totally convinced, Carly could tell, Freddie grabbed his headset to go on air.

-

**Meet Her in the Bathroom. That's What She Said. **

"I'm so glad that you tagged along, Spence." Carly mumbled and leaned back in the cushion soft seat at their favourite movie theatre. For a long time she had wanted to see this particular film, but she had no one to go with her. It wasn't exactly Spencer's kind of film, but he'd been kind enough to join her. "Can't believe I have no female friends to go with, huh."

Spencer reached into the big bowl of popcorn she'd had to bribe him with and threw a handful into his mouth. "You've always attracted the more masculine part of the population, Carls."

Carly couldn't help but laugh.

"Oh. You're gonna love this, Carly."

Carly's eyes followed Spencer's and then came to a halt. In a huge mess of lip gloss, hair and high heels came a bunch of women into the room just as the previews started. They were obviously giddy and excited and Carly couldn't stand it. It was those kind of people she hated being at the movies with, because they usually disturbed the entire film.

She glared at the backs of their necks. "If they don't shut up once the previews are done, I'm gonna clunk their heads together until the one brain cell they each have will have destructed itself."

Now it was Spencer's turn to laugh.

Carly glared at him. "I'm not kidding." she told him, though she knew that he knew she wasn't kidding.

Carly settled into her seat and as the previews continued, she kept one eye on those women, because if they didn't keep quiet, she was gonna teach them a thing or two about bad behaviour.

Unluckily for them, they didn't shut up and Carly had to disturb the entire room when she went down there to hassle them, and once she got back up, another person decided they needed the bathroom, and several people slurped their sodas, rattled with their candy's wrapping and chewed too loudly. Over all, it was everything that Carly hated, and once the movie was (finally) done, she had to use the bathroom.

"Because good people wait until the film is finished so they don't disturb everyone else." she told Spencer, as she parted with him and mingled through the throng of people in the hall to get to the restroom. There was an enormous line of course, but she got behind it like any good citizen would do. But as if everything hadn't been bad enough during the movie, now came a mother with a child tripping at its feet.

She looked frantic. "Can we please go in? He has to go so badly."

A couple of people looked away, because they didn't want to answer, while some moron nodded, but Carly wasn't taking this. "Hell no!" she said, attracting the attention from everyone else in the line. "If he has to use the bathroom, he'll have to wait like everyone else here does. We've got places to be and movies to catch as well."

"Relax woman, it's just one tiny person!" the mother quickly defended her son.

Carly was ready to fight. "I bet that everyone here will agree with me that this is not fair. That they have as much a right to go first as your son has."

A couple of people mumbled something it Carly's favour.

A stall became available, and Carly gave the woman a look that said, "if you go in there, I'll maim you!", which effectively made the woman and her son go to the back of the line, but not without a few curses on the way. Carly could easily live with that though, just as long as justice was achieved.

-

_**CARLY SAYS. **_

_Carly: Hi there fellow fighters for good behaviour. If you're doubting whether trying to sleep is a good idea or not, let me tell you, you shouldn't. Instead, you should stay here, because tonight we have some wrongs to right. _

_Freddie: Hello everyone. I'm Freddie Benson. _

_Carly: And I'm Carly Shay, and this is Carly Says! _

_Freddie: Carly says that this will be an eventful evening. So we'll be taking calls all night at 206-421-5757. _

_Carly: So we will be. Let's start out with a personal story of mine. So yesterday, I' was out with my older brother Spencer – you might know who he is, he's the artist making the new sculpture for Denny Park – and we're going to catch a movie-_

_Freddie: What film did you see? _

_Carly: That new chick flick, uhm, the one with uh... Emma Roberts! _

_Freddie: Oh. That one. _

_Carly: Yeah. So we're at the movies, and I come to think of a topic that we have yet to discuss here at Carly Says. I'm thinking about how it's appropriate to behave while watching a movie with several other people. Not only are some people rude enough to talk during the actual film, but they also chew their candy too loud, slurp their sodas for every last drop, and they leave at inappropriate places to go use the bathroom! _

_Freddie: That is not good behaviour! _

_Carly: Carly says it's just downright rude! _

_Freddie: And I'm hearing here, that we already have a caller through. What's your name? _

_Jennifer: Jennifer. _

_Freddie: Hi Jennifer. _

_Carly: Hello Jen. Do you have a story to share with us about bad behaviour at the movies? _

_Jennifer: I do actually. See, I was at the movies with a bunch of my girlfriends a couple of weeks ago, we were watching one of those romance slice comedy films, you know, the ones that always have a happy ending no matter how the story goes. _

_Carly: Oh I hate those. _

_Freddie: Can't stand 'em. _

_Carly: No, it's like they have no purpose whatsoever, because what they show is not real life, and what can we get out of that? Nothing! They're just completely stupid. _

_Freddie: Why would you even watch such a film, Jennifer? _

_Carly: Yeah Jen, why waste your time? _

_Jennifer: Well, we had a girl's night out. Dinner, a movie, drinks, hit the town! _

_Carly: Oh. Then it's acceptable. Please continue with your story about bad behaviour. _

_Jennifer: Will do! So. We're at the movies, right, we're five people, me, Rebecca, Samantha, Ashlee and Sarah. The four of us have known each other for ages, but we only met Samantha when she and Rebecca- _

_Freddie: Your story, Jennifer. _

_Jennifer: Oh yes. Sorry. So yes, we're at the movies, and we're five people, right? So we get in and we see some spare seats almost at the top, and you know you always wanna sit as closest to the top as possible, right? So we go up there, but when we get closer, we see that there are only four seats. _

_Carly: Ooh. Suddenly I see where this is going. _

_Freddie: Me too. _

_Carly: What happens next, Jenny-benny? I'm scared to hear. _

_Jennifer: You should be! So yes. We see that there's two spare seats closer to the middle of that same row, right? So I just, I politely poke the closest man's shoulder and – politely – ask if they can scoot over just one tiny seat so the five of us can sit together. And you know what he says? _

_Freddie: I'm frightened to know. _

_Carly: What did he say, Jenny? _

_Jennifer: He said "no"! Can you believe it? _

_Carly: Oh! That is so bad behaviour. That is the worst thing to do at the movies! That gets a nine and a half on the Carly scale of bad behaviour. _

_Freddie: But back to you Jennifer – what did you girls do now when you were denied the perfect seats? _

_Jennifer: Well, this is where it gets tricky, because now my friend Samantha, she starts acting very rudely. _

_Carly: This is a conflict of interest, I see. So she starts yelling or something? _

_Jennifer: Samantha is not the nicest person, says it doesn't get her places, but we try to keep her in control most of the time, but yeah... she goes at the man. Nails, spit and whatnot. _

_Carly: Ouch! That gets a definite ten on the Carly scale of bad behaviour, Jen! You should keep your friends in control, I had more faith in you. _

_Freddie: Me too. _

_Jennifer: I know. So naturally, security is called, and we're kicked out of there. Which totally pisses everyone off, especially Ashlee, because she really had to use the bathroom. _

_Carly: Crap! That reminds me of my story about the movies, because that wasn't just about the rude behaviour within the actual movie theatre, but also within the bathroom in the hall. _

_Freddie: This doesn't smell good. Tell us what happened, Carly. _

_Jennifer: Yeah! _

_Carly: Well, after the movie was done, I had to use the bathroom before heading home with Spencer – you know, he's an artist? ...and naturally there's this really horribly long line, but I get behind it like any other person would. But that's just it – not all people think that lines are for them. Some people tend to believe they are above lines. _

_Freddie: Did someone try to skip the line? _

_Carly: Yes! And of course it was a mother with a son who was literally hopping in there, so she tried to used the "he's a kid" method, but I wasn't taking it. She cursed me, but luckily other people seemed to back me up on this, and she had to go to the back of the line. _

_Freddie: But of course! No one is more important than others. She shouldn't get special treatment. ._

_Carly: No right? _

_Freddie: No. What do you say, Jennifer? Anyone get special treatment? _

_Jennifer: I don't know about special treatment, but I actually have another story to share from that evening, if you're interested. It's about bathroom behaviour. _

_Carly: We do like bathroom behaviour. What do you say, Freddie? Do we have time for one more story before the commercials? _

_Freddie: Plenty of time! _

_Carly: Go ahead, Jenny! _

_Jennifer: So, we didn't make the movie, but we decided not to let that ruin our night. We still wanted to go clubbing and dancing, so we go to our local dance club and we're drinking and having fun, and sooner or later everyone had to go real bad, so we head off to the bathroom. _

_Carly: Oh I hate those club bathrooms. They're horribly dirty, with barf and beer everywhere. _

_Jennifer: I know, I can't stand it either. But yeah, when you have to you have to, right. So we're off to the bathroom and there's a bunch of fucking b-beep-ches in front of us. _

_Carly: Can't say the b-word on Carly Says. _

_Jennifer: Oh. Sorry. There's a bunch of very rude women, who think they are something – that good? - in front of us, right. _

_Freddie: Very good, Jennifer. _

_Carly: You see Jen, we're giving you a lesson in better behaviour – first step: talk nice about random strangers! _

_Jennifer: Well okay. So right, we're in the bathroom, right? And there's something you should know about Samantha and Rebecca for this story to make sense. They're both gay. And they used to date. _

_Freddie: Oh crap. _

_Carly: We do have a few stories about gayness – that leads to very rude behaviour from very random people. _

_Freddie: Often it does. _

_Jennifer: Yes, so they've been dancing, maybe kissing a little, just for old time's sake, you know, right? And those very rude women, apparently, they've noticed that, right? And the first thing they do, they ask Samantha if she hasn't entered the wrong bathroom! _

_Carly: They did not! _

_Jennifer: Yup. And one of them has the nerve to say: "There should be three bathrooms. One labelled boys. One labelled girls. And one labelled others."_

_Freddie: No! _

_Carly: Nice change of voice in the end, by the way. _

_Jennifer: Thank you. _

_Freddie: So what happened? _

_Jennifer: Well naturally Samantha didn't take that very well either, so she went at those very rude women and ended up having us kicked out of the dance club too. _

_Carly: This time I understand her. _

_Freddie: You know, I think there's something about that name – Samantha – it does qualify as a rude-behaviour-name. _

_Jennifer: It does? _

_Freddie: We once had a friend, who- _

_Carly: Freddie! Not now, will ya'? _

_Freddie: Sorry. _

_Carly: So what happened to you, Samantha and the others? _

_Jennifer: Samantha ended up in ER, but the rest of us went home to watch a DVD. Night was ruined for us, right. But of course the incident has affected us a lot, because I've become more aware of the fact that these things happens everyday, every hour. _

_Carly: That is true. People should be more aware of this. Random people's reactions make teens afraid of coming out of the closet because they don't know how people will possibly react. _

_Freddie: We should do an entire segment on this here at Carly Says, don't you think, Carls? We'd definitely have some stories to share. _

_Carly: Perhaps we should, Freddie. _

_Freddie: Anyway, thanks to you, Jennifer. _

_Carly: Yup, thank you, Jen, for sharing your stories here at Carly Says. _

_-_

**Hey La, Hey La, Her Girlfriend's Back and She's Gonna Be in Trouble. **

As soon as they were off the air that night, Carly blew up at Freddie.

"Thanks a lot, Fred!" she cursed at him.

Freddie just gave her a small smile. "You can't expect me not to mention her, Carls. Not when the moment is rarely fitting. I know you wish that I don't, but it's just not possible."

Carly crossed her arms determinedly in front of her chest. She almost never acted like a child, but whenever Sam was brought up, everything bad came up in her, even if she tried to suppress it most times. "It's not only that you mentioned her, Freddie. But you decided to do it in front of all our listeners, totally undermining me. You know how I feel about her, you know that I don't wanna talk about it."

Freddie was not backing down this time. "And I know it's about time that you did." he said with his most firm voice.

Carly glared at him. "You can't force me to talk about her and what happened between us, Freddie, you just can't."

"She was my friend too." Freddie whispered. "She was my friend, and after how you treated me because of her, I think it's only fair that I get a say in this."

Carly felt her chest tighten. She knew that she hadn't been fair to Freddie, but to be honest, she hadn't even been sure he'd known the entire story; she hadn't thought he'd noticed, she didn't think he was perceptive enough. "You know?" she softly questioned him.

"Do I know that the only reason you dated me was because you needed an excuse to Sam for not dating her?" he paused. "Yeah, I know. I know that you weren't ready to face your feelings and that's why you started to date me."

"Freddie, I'm so-"

He cut her off. "You're sorry? Of course you are, you're Carly!" he shook his head. "Even I take some of the blame, because I kept hoping, kept convincing myself that someday you'd get over Sam and start dating me for me. Do you know how hard it was for me those years?"

Carly swallowed a huge lump in her throat. "I had no idea you felt like that. I thought that you'd..."

"That I'd just be happy to be with you?" Freddie suggested with a small glint in his eye. "At first, I was. I was so happy that I was fortunate enough to have you be my girlfriend. But eventually even that couldn't overshadow the fact that you were so in love with someone else."

She stared at him for a few moments. She could see that it still pained him after all these years; his face showed that, she knew all his faces. But he also looked contend to be where he was, even more so to get everything off his chest. She was sad that she'd done this to him, even sadder that she'd actually been stupid enough to believe that he hadn't noticed.

She breathed out. "Look. Are we – are we okay, Freddie?"

He shot her that charming smile of his. "We're okay, Carly." he mumbled.

Then they hugged it up.

And when they had said goodbye to each other outside their studio, Carly walked home alone in the chilly morning air, hands in her pockets, ticking about her and Freddie, Sam and what used to be.

Their friendship had ended horribly and quickly. Carly hadn't known how to handle it when Sam had proclaimed that she was gay and totally in love with her. Carly could feel that perhaps she felt something for her too, the touches, the stares, her heart beating fast, it all told her that maybe there was something there. Yet she couldn't deal; she was too scared of what people would say, too scared to find out how life would be as a lesbian, because those horror-stories had really gotten to her.

So she'd done the next-best-thing. She'd kissed Freddie in a moment of clear desperation. And it had been good; nice and comfortable. Freddie was the best towards her, and they had years of friendship to rely on. And that was her excuse to Sam – she was dating Freddie, she wasn't available. She thought that Freddie was the one who she was supposed to be with.

And Sam had said, "Well, call me when you're ready to face up to who you really are."

Then she'd left the apartment. Neither her nor Freddie had seen her since, and it had been strange, and Carly had missed her every single day since then, even if she never allowed herself to think about Sam and the way things ended between them. And she still wasn't ready to face up to who she really was, and even if she was ready, she wasn't going to call Sam anyhow.

Maybe she was stupid, and maybe she was a coward. But she couldn't do it. She couldn't be one of those out and proud lesbians, and she knew that it wasn't an option to be with a man – she wasn't attracted to them, she'd never be able to live in a normal relationship with one, so she preferred to be alone; even if it was a sad life.

When Carly crossed the street to get to her apartment, she duck one hand into her purse to find her keys, but paused when she saw a lone figure sitting on the three-steps-stair outside her apartment building.

It was a vaguely familiar posture. Black and red check patterned jeans, old, worn converse sneakers, a long sleeved shirt and a black vest. Her long curly hair was covered by a bright red knitted hat. Next to her lay a striped over-one-shoulder bag with its contents spilling everywhere: books, pencils, an iPod, a cell phone, tampons, candy, a bottled water and spare clothes. On her other side was a sleeping bag rolled together.

As Carly came to a halt in the middle of the – thankfully – deserted street, she looked up and their eyes meet. She was sure that it could not be a coincidence that she sat there tonight. There had to be a bigger reason for it.

"Hello Carly." she said and stood up, offering her an insecure smile and a funny wave.

Breathing deeply in, Carly stepped onto the rocky pavement. "Hi Sam."

* * *

_Hello everyone. Thanks for tuning in. It's been a while since I finished my last iCarly story, and has been – for a long time – wanting to write something with them as grown-ups. I hope you all enjoy the concept of this story (credit for that is due to Leslie Schnur, who wrote "Late Night Talking" which have inspired me greatly) because I've been working hard to get the details down and get a good feel of the atmosphere. _

_Please tell me what you thought of this, and I will try to update as fast as possible, if enough people want me to. Thought I do have a pretty busy life with exams coming up and living alone with my little sister, because my mother has been hospitalized since November. _

_Oh. And the chapter titles are all from songs. Just uh... altered, perhaps, a little bit :) _

_**Disclaimer; **I don't own iCarly or the radio station that I have 'borrowed' from real life. I do not own Late Night Talking either, but I have a very worn copy of it that I am now reading again. I borrowed the concept of the behaviour-radio-show from that book, because I thought it would make a very interesting character contrast between Carly and Sam. _


	2. Part Two

**I Hope You're Prepared, 'Cuz Sam's Gonna... Shower. **

If there was something Carly hated more than anything, it was when people just decided to 'drop by' completely unannounced. She'd had to live with that her entire childhood with two best friends practically going in and out of her house as they pleased. At times, they were there when she wasn't, and even spent the night on her couch when she didn't know it (though that was mostly Sam – Freddie's mum was a bit too strict for that to be possible, though Carly was sure Freddie would have loved to).

Taking in a deep breath, Carly leaned her hands against her kitchen counter and bent down, breathing out. "What the fuck's she doing here?" she mumbled to herself, finding it hard to actually breathe like a normal person. Sam was in her bathroom – in her frigging bathroom, for Christ's sake! - washing up. She couldn't handle this, she was not _equipped_ to handle this!

She contemplated ringing Spencer or Freddie or just someone to get them over here, so she wouldn't have to be alone with Sam afterwards, because she couldn't be. It was too weird after everything that happened between them and then how things ended.

"Carlieeee!"

Carly turned around on the spot and had to calm herself profusely before she was able to walk through her kitchen and down the hall and stop in front of the bathroom door. She knew that yell anywhere, even after so many years, when Sam wanted something, she always dragged the 'y' in 'Carly' out. "What is it, Sam?" she asked through the door, knocking a few times afterwards.

_This is not happening, this is SO not happening! _Carly told herself in a vain attempt to convince her brain otherwise so it would just be a regular Thursday morning. She was tired, she'd been at work all night, and all she wanted to do was sleep for at least a couple of hours before dealing with something even remotely as huge as this.

"Where are your towels?"

"Towels!?" What the fuck did she need towels for, was she taking an entire shower or something? "Why do you need towels?"

There was a pause. "I don't want to get your house all dirty, Carls, I need to clean up."

Well, at least there was one considerate thing in that sentence. "They're on the top shelf in the lowest cupboard left to the sink."

"Thank you, Carls!"

Carly turned around, truly confused about all of this. Was Sam not mad? Wasn't she furious about how things ended with the two of them? She kept calling her 'Carls', talking to her as if they were fifteen again and none of those bad things had happened, even when Carly knew that Sam had every right to get stinking mad and throw stuff at her for how she treated her.

Walking down the hall, Carly decided to get some sleep before talking to Sam – she'd be in the shower forever anyway, after all, it was Sam.

-

**And I Said "What About Breakfast at Carly's?"**

When Carly woke up a few hours later, she heard quiet humming coming from the kitchen and the clatter of plates being sat and food being made.

She sat up in her bed and realized she'd fallen asleep with all her clothes on. She usually took a shower before sleeping, but well, that hadn't been possible, and though she could take one now, she was too curious to get into the kitchen to see what Sam was up to. The tension would be awkward between them, because even if Sam tried to act like nothing had ever happened, Carly sure as hell couldn't just do that.

She got out of bed and quickly changed into something much more comfortable than her tight skirt and white dress shirt. Running a brush through her sleep-affected hair, she pulled it into a messy bun and went down the hallway to the kitchen. The sight in there was a bit surprising to her: Sam was cooking eggs and bacon on the stove and the smell of freshly baked bread was unmistakable in her nose.

Carly leaned against the door frame into the kitchen and watched Sam for a few seconds, enjoying seeing her again, getting to study her features without Sam, who was engrossed in cooking and humming, knowing. She'd grown older, Carly could clearly see that, though her long wavy hair and the clothes were still the same. She was taller now, though still lower than Carly herself. She wasn't as skinny as Carly, she had more muscles, a bit more of a womanly curve around her hips and her shoulders and breasts.

She'd always had more womanly curves, which Carly had always loved.

Just then, Sam turned around to get something from one of the cupboards, but she came to a halt, when she realized that Carly was there. The brunette stiffened in her posture too; she'd been caught staring, and whether that was a good thing or not, she wasn't sure. It was weird though, to see Sam's face now that it was clean and scrubbed. Her features seemed a lot older, much more wiser, than the last time she'd seen them. Her eyes were still the same aspiring colour, but they held so much sadness and grief, yet also the burst of fun and happiness that Carly was so familiar with.

Sam brushed a piece of her hair out of her face. "Good morning, Carls. I hope you don't mind. I started making breakfast for us. I took some money out of your wallet to get some bread, because I don't have any."

Carly didn't even want to tell her not to take her stuff, because for a moment there, it felt like they were just fifteen again and Sam needed money for meat or a smoothie.

"Are you cooking breakfast?" Carly whispered and took a step closer, letting her nostrils enjoy the tasty smell that erupted everywhere from her kitchen counter. She never really cooked; not when she was only herself, it was much easier to just get take-away. Plus, often she wasn't home for dinner, so there wasn't much _to_ cook.

Sam offered her an insecure smile, and Carly felt relieved to know she wasn't the only one finding this weird. "I hope you don't mind. I worked at a restaurant for a bit a couple years ago. We had this breakfast menu until eleven."

Carly tried to smile. "It smells good."

Sam turned around then, to finish their breakfast, and Carly turned to her kitchen table, only to pause once more. Why were there... three plates?

"I hope you don't mind." Sam said again, now placing sliced bread onto the round table. "I took your phone out of your purse and called Freddie. He was really surprised to hear from me."

"You did what?"

Carly was barely awake, but she was sure she had heard correctly. Was Sam just taking over her entire flat, doing this and that and God-knows-what?

The blonde flashed her a small smile. "I said 'What about breakfast at Carly's?' and he said 'I'm on my way', so that's why he's coming." she explained.

Carly didn't really know what to reply to that, so she took a seat instead. There was everything she could ever want for breakfast on this table; never had she had something like this. It sure beat the cereal she usually ate before and after crashing.

"So how have you been?" Sam asked her then, placing a pot of coffee in the middle of the table and taking a seat right in front of her. "I mean, of course I know you've been good, I often listen to your show, it's really funny, and it's actually the reason I came here tonight, 'cuz-"

Carly interrupted her. "You listen to my show?" She did not know how to feel about that, but for some reason it made her really happy to know that Sam had listened to her and Freddie sometimes. It made her feel as if they hadn't been so far apart.

Sam raised a cocky eyebrow. "Sure I do. Often I can't sleep, what to do then? Tune into _Carly Says_! I just _love_ how you correct people when they behave badly and how you're so into what's wrong and right."

Carly wasn't sure, but she had a feeling that a part of that sentence wasn't meant in the positive way that it was said. "So – you came because you heard our show?"

"Weeeell," Sam dragged out the word and reached for a piece of bacon. Eating it in one piece, she opened her mouth to speak before she was done chewing. "I heard you guys talking about me. At least Freddie almost talked about me. And the entire deal with gay people, what-to-do and what-not-to-do with them – it just _really intrigues_ me, y'know?"

Okay, so this time Carly was sure she wasn't crazy. There was definitely some sarcasm there, that was certain. "It intrigues a lot of people, I bet." she whispered, not daring to get back at Sam on this, because she knew that the conversation following it would have to be awful.

"The entire gay part of the population!" Sam didn't hesitate to say back.

Carly reached for the pot of coffee in the middle of the table and poured herself some. She needed caffeine if she was going to get through this morning. She cleared her throat then. "You still – uhm, gay?"

Sam stared at her in complete disbelief, and Carly knew she should say something about what happened all those years ago, but she just couldn't get herself to do it. "Last time I checked." Sam replied, when Carly didn't say anything.

Carly sighed lowly. _This is not going well, this is so not going well._

The buzzer went off.

"That will be Freddie." Sam said and got off her chair before Carly even had the chance to do anything. Carly let her eyes follow her old best friend as she buzzed Freddie in, and she felt her heart swell of both happiness and sadness when she saw the two of them hug as the good friends they once were – even when they always messed with each other. She saw the tenderness in Freddie's eyes that he still held for Sam even after all these years, and she saw the mischievous grin across Sam's face that she always had when Freddie was near.

And Carly reached for her cup of coffee, her eyes wandering over Sam yet again, as she talked to Freddie. She hated to admit this to herself, but-

_Damn_, Carly thought, _Sam looks good! _

-

_**CARLY SAYS. **_

_Carly: So tonight's big subject here at Carly Says will have to be the inappropriate ways to just 'drop by'. I'm sure all of you have had that experience before, unless of course, you are the drop-byer, but if you were, I'm sure you wouldn't be listening to us here at Carly Says! So well, there are some things that you can do, and then there are some things you may be able to do if you're lucky, and then there's some definite no's, you know! _

_Freddie: Definitely. _

_Carly: Yup. So I lived my entire childhood with two best friends – one of them being my dear co-worker Freddie here – who just 'dropped by' whenever they felt like it. As in, literally, in the middle of the night, or when neither me, myself, nor my brother – Spencer Shay; the artist – weren't home. They'd take food out of our refrigerator and watch TV. _

_Freddie: Hey! That wasn't me! That was Sam! _

_Carly: It was also you. _

_Freddie: You promised me you wouldn't use me in your behaviour stories! My Mum is listening to this! _

_Carly: Even better! Mrs. Benson – you should have raised your son better. _

_Freddie: Do not even kid about this, Carly, you know she'll come stay with me to fix this! _

_Carly: I'm sure she won't, Freddie! _

_Freddie: Could we talk about Sam, please? _

_Carly: That's right! We _can_ talk about Sam, because uhm, that's this new thing I've decided to do. I've decided to talk about Sam. _

_Freddie: And why is that? _

_Carly: Because last night Sam – inappropriately – 'dropped by' at my flat, so now she's staying on my couch! _

_Freddie: Reeeally? _

_Carly: Yes. Very awkward since we haven't spoken since high school. _

_Freddie: I can imagine. Though it was good to see her again. _

_Carly: I'm surprised she's still got all her limbs._

_Freddie: Me too. I dunno why, but I'd sort of expected her to at least have lost a finger or two. _

_Carly: Anyway! We'll be taking calls all night at 206-421-5757 so if you've got any stories to share about 'dropping by' unannounced, we'll be happy to comment on them and/or make some fun of those dropping byers! _

-

**We Were Young And Times Were Easy. **

When the silence had settled in the kitchen after Sam (insisting on this) had cleaned everything off herself, while Carly had rested her eyes on the couch, Carly suddenly felt the other end of the couch bulge down greatly and she could feel the tantalizing presence of her former best friend.

_Why is it still like this? _Carly questioned herself while her eyes were still closed. _It has always been like this. So much energy, so much fire between us. Why is that? _

"Carly."

She didn't want anything from her. She said her name so lightly, letting it so easily slip across her tongue as if it hadn't been years since she used it like that. She didn't have any expectations. She simply wanted to talk.

The brunette opened both her eyes and turned her head to look at the blonde. She sighed heavily and said, "Sam."

There was a small smile.

"Are you going to tell me why you're really here?" Carly questioned then. They hadn't had time to talk, but now they were alone and it was about time they really did.

Sam kicked back in the couch, letting her feet hit the coffee table in front of her, relaxing the way Carly always remembered her. "I heard you talking about gays and gay rights and me, and -" she paused, "-I guess I was just curious. You seem to not care these days. As if you don't care that people know you're gay. That you can just be yourself. And I just wonder why you weren't like that ten years ago."

Carly swallowed hard. "I'm not gay."

Sam paused. She was still for a few seconds, watching Carly carefully. Her eyes searching hers as if it was the last thing she'd want to do. Then she cracked a smile. "Oh you're serious. How cute."

"I'm not gay!" Carly objected.

Sam shrugged her shoulders. "Sure, if you say so."

Carly didn't even have the strength to discuss this with her. _I know I'm not gay. That's the only thing that matters._ "I'm not gay, but I still believe that there's a way to treat gay people and there's a way to not treat them."

Sam offered her a short nod. "I totally agree."

"So you decided that you better drop by unannounced since you heard me talking about gay people?" Carly wasn't sure, but there was something not right about that.

Sam's eyes went big. "Oh no." she mocked. "That not the right thing to do concerning the Carly scale of bad behaviour? How much will this get me? Six and a half?"

Carly knew that she deserved everything Sam was giving her right now and this wasn't as bad as it could have been. Sam was Sam after all – she could have decided to beat her with a mouldy fish or something. This was definitely positive. "Maybe seven and a half."

Sam nodded. "Of course."

"Well?"

"Well I thought that maybe it was time to go see how my oldest best friend was doing." Sam hit her lightly with a closed fist on her upper arm. "So how are ya', Carls?"

"Oh you know."

_I have nothing to say. You know everything about me. My job is my entire life. _

Sam blinked a few times. "Since you're _not_ gay, any special dude in your life?"

_Nope. Nothing. Nada. _"I have a few guys in mind."

Sam didn't look like she believed her. Carly knew why. She hadn't sounded convincing. At all. "Sooo..." she looked around the room. "Nice flat you've got here. Can I crash on your couch?"

There was a beat. "Crash on my what now?"

Sam pointed with her foot at her rolled up sleeping bag next to the door. "I'm sorta in-between apartments at the moment... got no place to stay. A friend of mine is housing all my crap, not that there's much of that. But she can't exactly house me with a husband and a baby, so yeah. I need a place to stay."

Carly thought that she at least owed her this. "Sure. You can crash on my couch."

"Thank you."

Carly got up to leave. But Sam's voice stopped her.

"You know we're gonna have to talk eventually, right?"

Carly didn't turn around.

-

_**CARLY SAYS. **_

_Carly: And we have caller through on the line right now. This is Matthew, right? _

_Matthew: Sure is! _

_Freddie: Hi Matthew. _

_Carly: Hello Matt! Can I call you Matt? _

_Matthew: You can call me anything, Carly. _

_Carly: Should I be scared now? _

_Freddie: Ew. _

_Carly: That sounds stalkerish and slight obsessive, Matt. Are you obsessed with me? _

_Matthew: I have trouble sleeping so I listen to your show every night. _

_Freddie: Every night? _

_Carly: Dang, that_ is_ obsessive! _

_Matthew: You have a lovely voice and a nice sense of humour and I think you're absolutely right to discuss matters or wrong and right. _

_Carly: Well I can live with having a stalker as long as you keep your distance and love my show. _

_Matthew: I'll hold you on that deal. _

_Freddie: Well! _

_Carly: Yes! We are all waiting excitingly here in the studio, and I'm sure that there's a lot of listeners waiting patiently as well – share your story with us, Matt! _

_Freddie: First though, I think it's time for a short break. _

_Carly: Ouch, even more waiting around for everyone. Is that OK with you, Matty? Is Matty okay too? _

_Matthew: Yes. And yes. _

_Carly: Good! We'll be right back. _

_-_

**I Know That I'll Never Hold You Like I Did Before the Storm. **

Carly was studying her face in the mirror still, with squeezed eyes trying to pick out what it was that was out of place with her appearance. She'd been standing like that for nearly five minutes now, desperately trying to place the wrongs, but she simply had no idea where to look. She tilted her head left, then right, and ended with a sigh.

"Don't worry, you look good."

She turned around. For a second there, she'd almost forgotten that Sam was in her apartment. _Shit. She cared the you-know-what out of me! _

"You've always looked good." Sam finished and gave her that clear once-over, the once-I'm-checking-you-out-over.

Carly felt weird beneath her lustful eyes. She cleared her throat. "Thank you."

Sam entered the bathroom like this was no big deal and took a seat on the closed toilet. "Are you going to work?"

The brunette turned around and leaned herself against the sink. "Freddie and I have to prep before the show. Talk about which dilemmas we're going to discuss and things like that."

Sam bit her lip.

"Are you going to sleep?"

It wasn't easy, making conversation. _But you're trying Carly. Even if she just happened to come to you when you least expected it, least were prepared for it, you're still making polite conversation. _

"I think I'll stay up and listen to your show, maybe." Sam said and stood up then. "Maybe you'll talk about me for real this time."

Carly couldn't help but smile, because she was acting like the drama queen she could totally be at times. "Maybe I will then." she giggled.

Sam paused in the doorway into the hallway and turned around, leaning herself softly against the side. "You do know that I've missed you, right?" she stated.

_I've missed you too. _

"I've missed our girls' nights. Our casual conversations." she paused and stared longingly at Carly. "And I've missed holding you, having your hand in mine. Like we always did before things got screwed up."

_I've missed all that too. I've missed everything about us, Sam. How come you can say it and I can't? _

She sighed. "I guess I just wanted you to know that."

"Sam!" _Say something, Carly, do it! _She breathed heavily out. "I hope that maybe... we can do that again soon."

There was a small smile in the corner of Sam's lip.

* * *

_Thank you so much for all the amazing reviews for the first chapter! I hope the wait wasn't too horrible with this one ;) I tried to write it as quickly as possible without messing anything up. Your support from the first chapter definitely encouraged me, so thank you. _

_I hope you liked this chapter as well, and feel free to comment on anything. It's greatly appreciated. Oh. And I must say it's great to be writing a multi-chaptered story again. It's just such a different feeling than writing one-shots :) _

_**Disclaimer; **I don't own iCarly. _


	3. Part Three

**I Can See It. I Can See It. **

"Oh mother of-"

Carly swore that she was going to lose her mind if not right now, then very soon. She'd forgotten what it was like to live with someone, what it was like to have to compromise and share everything. She was not good at it.

Sam had within a matter of a few days overshadowed every part of the flat that she loved so much. Everywhere she looked, there was Sam, Sam, Sam and it was completely driving her mad. Everything was divided into two and sharing was not something she'd been accustomed to for the last ten years or so.

Carly threw the newest edition of her favourite magazine onto the floor of her marble bathroom. Everything seemed to spin around before her eyes and she was certain that if she didn't manage to calm herself down somehow within the last minute or so, she was gonna blow into millions of tiny pieces and Sam would find the remains of her when she – at some point – decided to care about something other than meat.

The brunette stomped her foot into the ground in angry beats. "She did not!" she spat to herself, bending down to pick the magazine up again. She hadn't had time to read it yet, but had placed it on top of the stack of magazines she kept in her bathroom for when she decided to rest in the tub. Everywhere, at every page she turned, someone – or something! - who was neither masculine nor Santa Claus had 'grown' a beard.

She wasn't furious. She was more than that. She was hurt, tired and disgusted with the immaturity that Sam possessed, because this was not funny. She was _not _laughing.

Everywhere, which ever page she turned, she found Sam's childish penmanship and drawings, either stating something completely foolish in a bobble or an evil Hitler beard.

Feeling the rage within her burn again, she threw the magazine to the ground once more and stomped into the living room, where Sam was currently napping. She ripped the blanket off of the blonde woman and let it fall to the floor in a heap. "There's just _some_ things that you _don't _do!" she hissed.

Sitting up in the couch, Sam rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. "What do I don't do?" she yawned and looked up at Carly with that innocent look she wasn't so good at.

Petting her brown mane to her back, Carly continued, "You don't draw on other peoples' magazines. New magazines! I hadn't even had a time to read it yet!"

Sam looked confused for a second or two, before a light seemed to dawn on her. "Oooh." she laughed. "That was your magazine! I just drew on Lindsay Lohan because I thought she'd look better with the beard."

"It's not funny!" What the fuck was wrong with her? Who did she think she was to just stumble into her perfectly ordered life and mess everything up, draw on her magazines and eat her food?

Sam continued to laugh. "I thought it was pretty funny."

_Don't laugh at me! Don't laugh at me when I'm being serious! _

"Lighten up, Carls." Sam mumbled, before she laid down onto the couch again and closed her eyes.

_**CARLY SAYS. **_

_Carly: Hello fellow insomniacs! You have tuned into Freedom 570 KVI and I'm Carly Shay. _

_Freddie: Freddie Benson here. _

_Carly: And this is Carly Says! _

_Freddie: Certainly is. _

_Carly: If you're here, chances are you know what we mostly like to talk about which is, of course, good versus bad behaviour. I like to discuss what to do and what not to do, and like with so many other things, when you are given hospitality by a friend, there's a certain way to act, but there is certainly also a way in which not to act. _

_Freddie: I smell something coming. _

_Carly: Well, you will be able to smell her, that's for sure, because it seems to me as if she never showers. _

_Freddie: Wait a minute! Are we talking about Sam again? I had no idea. _

_Carly: You don't know how to be sarcastic Freddie, so cut it out. Do I seem to find it funny? _

_Freddie: Gosh, someone really pissed you off, huh! _

_Carly: Not someone.. Sam! _

_Freddie: So tell us about it. _

_Carly: Well, as all observant listeners may know, I currently have our ex-best friend and the other host of iCarly staying with me after we haven't spoken for about ten years... And I've had a very good life so far after we split, very calm and in order, just the way I like it, and oh so suddenly, she shows up and now everything is messed up in my apartment! And guess why? Because she doesn't know good behaviour! _

_Freddie: She certainly does not and she never has. _

_Carly: Nope. So you see, things are getting pretty weird in my apartment with the two of us living there. Just this morning, I found my favourite magazine – the newest edition, which I hadn't even read yet – coloured with beards and immature comments, and let me tell you, that did not go down very well with me! You just don't do that when you stay at someone's place, am I right? _

_Freddie: What had she drawn? Was it something funny? _

_Carly: Well she drew a beard on Lindsay Lohan. _

_Freddie: Damn that's good! I thought that maybe-_

_Carly: Freddie! Freddie that's not good! That's rude behaviour, and you know what? In fact, I'm gonna give it a ten on the Carly scale of bad behaviour. _

_Freddie: What more did she do then? I'm sure the drawing is not all. _

_Carly: And you're right to be sure, because it's not. She does all kind of rude things, and when I confront her about it, you know what she says? _

_Freddie: What does she say? _

_Carly: She says "Well Carly, nobody's perfect". _

**Nobody's Perfect, You Live and You Learn It.**

"Saaam!"

Turning around to meet her, Carly leaned against the side of her kitchen counter with a sigh.

"You hollered, my fair lady?" Sam teased her in a fake British accent, while she did an over-exaggerated gentleman bow that had her nose to the ground.

Carly was not amused. "What's this gunk in the sink?" she questioned then and turned back around, poking with a fork at the weird mass of... something, which had currently taken up residence in her kitchen sink.

Sam stood right beside her and bent down to sniff it. "I don't know. Food?"

Carly gave her a look. "Well, you put it there, so you should know."

"I think it's just the remains of food and stuff. I thought it was easier to throw it there because the garbage can was full." Sam explained in her usual whatever-voice.

"Sam!" Carly hissed and turned around to stare at her fully. Her arms were crossed and she took in a deep breath. "You can't just throw stuff in the sink. If the garbage can is full, then you take it downstairs and put it there."

Sam made a face. "But then I'll have to walk down there, won't I?"

How someone could be so lazy and clueless, Carly had no idea. How she had ever managed to be friends with Sam was an even bigger question to her at that moment. "Don't be so lazy, Sam!"

"Hey!" Sam fired right back, raising her voice and glaring up at her. "I might be lazy, but at least I'm not a complete control freak like you are!"

"I am not a-"

"Well Carly, nobody's perfect."

Carly paused and blinked. Did she just say-?

"_Nobody's perfect, I gotta work it, again and again 'till I get it right! Nobody's perfect, you live and you learn it, and if I mess it up sometimes, nobody's perfect!_"

Was she just singing and dancing that corny Hannah Montana song from the second season? Oh. Wait a minute. How did she even know that it was from the second season? "I've been watching too much TV." Carly mumbled to herself and backed out of the kitchen.

**Don't Give Us None of Your Aggravation. Saturday Night is Alright for Fighting. **

Saturday night and nothing to do. That was pretty much how it went every weekend. It was one of the two evenings where Carly didn't have to work and she usually spent it in front of the TV watching old reruns of _Sex and the City, Friends _and _Gossip Girl_.

Some people might call it quite sad, but Carly was feeling alright. She was in her night gown, resting in her bed with a cappuccino, her hair was thrown back in a messy bun like usually and she was watching Carrie and Mr. Big try to solve one of their usual problems. This was how she wanted to spend her Saturday night – just Carly, Carly and Carly. Nothing better than that!

She was going to watch telly and then go to bed at a reasonable hour for once. _Watch me with my perfectly planned evening. Everything is just so wonderful! _

Bursting through the door to her bedroom, Sam rudely interrupted Carrie's rant, "Hey Carls, you wanna go out for a couple of-" she paused in a complete still pose when she saw Carly on the bed. "Don't tell me you've gone to bed already?"

Carly placed her cappuccino on the night stand next to her and flattened her quilt. "I am enjoying a nice night in."

"Is this how you wanna spend your Saturday night?" Sam continued, now stepping into the room fully, completely blocking Carly's view at the TV. "This is one of the only nights you don't have to work, and there you are, going to sleep? Why not go out and have some fun?"

"This is fun!"

Sam shook her head. "Carly. I know fun. That ain't fun."

Carly sighed heavily. "To me it's fun."

"No." Sam said, turning around to turn off the TV before Carly could object. "No way. You're coming with me. You need to get out more, Carls. Get out and live your life! You're stuck in the same old boring routine everyday, and you're only yourself. This is the time that you wanna spend experiencing all the things you won't be able to do when you get a family."

"Oh, like go to jail and lose my job and my flat?" Carly sarcastically fired back at her. _I'm not doing this. I'm not going to give into her shenanigans. If she wants to go out and get drunk, she can. I will stay here with Carrie and Mr. Big because those two have always been there for me. _

The insult didn't even effect the blonde woman. "I'm living me life in the moment, Carly, come join me, will ya'? You're gonna regret it."

She flattened her quilt again. "I will not."

Sam wasn't backing down, it seemed. She sat down at the foot of the bed and determinedly continued her pursue. "Carly please! I'm not doing this for me, I have plenty of other friends I can go out and get wasted with. It just kills me to know that this is what your life has become like. We used to have so much fun."

_You! You used to have so much fun! I used to follow you around trying to make sure that no one got permanently injured!_

"Freddie tells me that this is all you do." Sam said, her voice slowly getting closer and closer to shrill. "He says that the only people you ever hang around with are him, Spencer and his wife! You need to get out more! Let your hair down."

Carly could feel the lump in her throat. Because no matter how much she loved her life, she knew that there weren't many people in it, and that Sam had really hit home. She swallowed. "Get. Out. Of. My. Room. I don't wanna go anywhere with you."

Sam seemed to get that she had lost this battle and slowly got off the bed. With on hand on the knob, she turned back around once more. "Let your hair down." she repeated.

When the door closed behind her, Carly's left hand immediately flew to the bun on her head. "My hair's perfect the way it is." she stiffly said to no one but herself.

**Green Reminds Me of Everything We Did. It Blinds Me. **

Carly felt completely rested when she woke up the next morning at around nine. She had fallen asleep watching _Sex and the City_, but now there was some cooking program running across the screen, and as she reached for the remote to flip it off, she thought she was crazy for a moment because she actually thought that she could smell the scrambled eggs through the screen.

She could hear the shower running from down the hall, and knowing Sam was in the there, she saw the perfect opportunity to grab something from the kitchen without having to face her. She really didn't want to look her in the eye after what happened between them last night – it was just too awkward and not exactly her cup of tea.

The brunette slipped her feet into her slippers and continued out of her bedroom and down the hall. She paused though, when the sound of rattling in the kitchen suddenly overshadowed the sound of the shower running, and a delicious smell of breakfast filled her nostrils as it had often done since Sam arrived.

But how-

"Good morning!"

In the middle of her kitchen was a strange redhead only wearing one of Sam's oversized shirts. She was wrapped up in it with Carly's apron outside and she was – apparently – cooking some sort of breakfast. Which smelled delicious.

_Bigger picture here, Carly! There's a complete stranger – almost naked! - in your kitchen and you're thinking with your tummy? _

"I'm Agnes." the redhead introduced herself with a huge smile covering her freckled face.

Carly shook the hand she held out. "Carly Shay."

"You're from _Carly Says_!" Agnes warmly smiled as she turned to handle her omelet so it didn't burn. "I listen to your show sometimes. But mostly I know you from _iCarly_, I was completely obsessed with your web show when I was younger."

Carly didn't really know what to say to that, so she asked the most obvious question. "Uhm where's … Sam?"

Agnes laughed. "Sorry! Sam's in the shower, I wanted to cook her breakfast before I leave. There's plenty if you wanna join."

Carly sat down by her round kitchen table and poured herself some freshly squeezed orange juice. She gulped down a long sip before talking once more. "So where do you and Sam-?"

Agnes interrupted her. "We just met last night. I was out with my friends, but when I saw Sam, I just knew I had to talk to her – she hasn't changed that much since _iCarly_, I was certain it was her – so I just went up and started dancing with her and we really hit it off! I had no idea I was gonna end up here though, but we got carried away."

Carly glanced at her expensive leather couch and tried not to imagine what they had been doing on it all night. She didn't know what was worse: That Sam picked up random strangers at clubs and brought them back to the flat, or that it actually annoyed her to no end that this Agnes person was the most gorgeous model-type of girl she'd seen in a while.

"Uh! Seems like the shower has stopped." Agnes told Carly and placed a plate in front of her with an omelet on it that was just so mouth-watering good that Carly almost drowned in her own drool for a second there.

Agnes took off the apron and threw it across the back of a chair and sat down opposite Carly. She reached for a piece of pineapple from the ball of fruit she'd sliced up. A smile was on her face the entire time as the silence rose between the two of them. It was easy to hear when Sam's bare feet came padding down the hallway towards the kitchen.

_I almost don't have the energy to witness this. _

As soon as Sam entered the kitchen, her face lit up, and whether it was at the sight of all the food or at the sight of Agnes only wearing her shirt, Carly wasn't sure, but she definitely had a huge smile on her face. The blonde crossed the room, trailing water everywhere, and before she took a seat, she made sure to kiss Agnes long and nauseating on the mouth, slipping a good amount of tongue in there.

"Stinky breath!" she whispered, and gently slapped Agnes on the cheek.

The redhead laughed and Carly looked into her plate, heaving in a deep breath.

"'Morning Carls." Sam said then and reached for the bacon right next to her plate. She didn't think twice before she whipped it all onto her plate without blinking.

Carly took in a deep breath and forced a smile. "Good morning."

Agnes licked her fingers and stood up from her seat, "I have to go use the bathroom, excuse me." she whispered, planting another one on Sam for good measure before she hurried down the hall.

Sam smiled goofily and poured herself a cup of coffee. She then emptied half the sugar bowl down there as well, before she took a slurp. "Did Carrie and Mr. Big solve their problems?" she questioned then, and Carly felt her heart skip a beat when she saw the obvious happiness in her old best friend's eyes.

"I feel asleep." Carly replied. _Not that Carrie and Mr. Big will ever solve their problems anyway. _"You had a good night, I see?"

Sam shrugged her shoulders. "She's a great girl."

Carly snorted. _Great. Yes. Great on my expensive leather couch! _

Sam paused. "Do you have a problem?"

"Do you really think it's appropriate to bring some random girl back to _my _flat?" she couldn't help but say. It just slipped out of her before she was able to stop herself.

Sam sighed and reached for a piece of toast. "Don't be so uptight, Carls. Just 'cuz you're not getting any, doesn't mean others can't, OK?"

Not knowing what to reply to that, Carly pushed her chair back and left Sam to butter her toast.

_**CARLY SAYS. **_

_Freddie: I am hearing through my earpiece that we have a caller through on the phone. Taylor, am I right? _

_Carly: Taylor? I always thought that Taylor was such an interesting name! You never know whether it's a dude or a girl you're going to talk to until you actually see them or hear them speak. Are you a dude or a girl, Tay? _

_Taylor: I'm a woman. _

_Freddie: Great! Here at Carly Says we love women! _

_Carly: Freddie loves women. _

_Freddie: You love them too, you just admit it, Carly. _

_Carly: Sure, women are very interesting, but they can be a pain in the butt as well. _

_Taylor: You tell me about it. _

_Carly: You agree, Taylor? Even if you're of the female kind as well? _

_Taylor: You agree too, don't you, Carly? _

_Freddie: She's got a point there, Carls... _

_Carly: Yup! I agree too! And you know why I think women can be a pain in the butt also? That's because I know Sam. And how come I know her? I don't even know. She's just completely oblivious to other people's thoughts and other people's feelings, and it's like it doesn't even matter if she tramples around on everyone with her giant feet! _

_Freddie: Sam really pisses you off, huh! _

_Carly: She does, she does! But I'm a mature confident woman, who – to contrary beliefs – can actually let her hair down and lighten up! I know how to have fun. I – I sometimes put bobbles in my tub AND dance around in my apartment. How's that for letting your hair down, huh! _

_Taylor: You go, girl! _

_Freddie: Be careful there, Carls. You might do something completely off the scale if you're not careful. _

_Carly: Was that sarcasm? Freddie, was that sarcasm? _

_Taylor: I think it was, Ms. Shay. _

_Carly: That was SO sarcasm! Why are you using sarcasm on me, Freddie? _

_Freddie: I'm not using sarcasm. _

_Taylor: It was sarcasm. _

_Carly: It really was! _

_Freddie: You know what ? I think it's time for a commercial break! We'll be right back, and as soon as we are, we'll talk to Taylor about bad behaviour!

* * *

_

_Hello everyone. I'm so sorry that it took me so long to update and I'm sorry that it's such a short chapter as well. I hope it was worth the wait though. I promise I'll try to update quicker the next time. _

_Please leave me a comment with your thoughts on this chapter. I'd love to know :) _

_**Disclaimer; **I don't own iCarly. And again – the titles are all from songs. _


	4. Part Four

**She Had an Idea. A Brilliant Idea. **

Carly was just trying to read one of her favourite classics, when Sam hollered from her so-called bedroom (in the living room).

"Carliiiiiiiie!"

Closing her book with a sigh, Carly dreaded what was coming. Most likely it was another one of Sam's stupid ideas that she had to tag along with. Those ideas had been more and more lately; there was not a thing Sam hadn't wanted her to do, but fortunately enough she still had the awesome power of free will, so she could just say no... unless when Sam blackmailed and or forced her.

Sam's curly mane popped through the doorway. She had a scheming smile on her face. "Carls, you hear me?"

"Yes, I heard you." Carly said, popping an eyebrow up and placing her book on her night stand.

Sam entered the bedroom and sat down by the foot of Carly's bed. "I've got a great beyond great idea!"

Carly cleared her throat. "And what's that?"

An even huger smile conquered her childish face. "We're having a dinner party!" she told, her eyes lighting up as a child's would on Christmas morning. "I'm thinking you, me, Freddie, Spencer and his wife – eh, what's her name-?"

"Monica."

"Monica! Spencer and his wife Monica."

Carly had no idea what to say.

"So what do you say? Fun? Yes? No?"

Carly sighed. It wasn't like she didn't want to have the dinner party, she just never really thought about it. It seemed like such a hassle to invite the people she usually saw every day together, when she saw them anyway. What was the point exactly?

Sam took her silence as an agreement. "Cool. I'll arrange everything. I'll even cook the food. You don't have to do a thing, Carls! All you have to do is be present!" she finished, before she got up and skipped out of the bedroom.

Carly didn't know what it was, but everything just felt so weird lately. As in even weirder than usual. She couldn't explain why, but she felt even more awkward around Sam after that morning where she woke up to find a strange woman in her kitchen. Not that Sam had had Agnes over since that morning. Something just kept nagging her about the incident, but she couldn't really explain why. She just hated that everything came so easy to the blonde woman, while she, herself, had troubles just doing the more simple things.

And now she had to make polite conversation with four people for an entire meal, which was very hard, when she usually preferred eating alone. She couldn't stand to watch Spencer and Monica for an entire meal, them being all couple-y and excited about their future baby.

What does one talk about anyway? Can't just talk about the most random things during a dinner party like that, it just wasn't polite.

_**CARLY SAYS. **_

_Carly: Aaaaand we're back after this short commercial break. For those of you who are just tuning into Freedom 570 KVI I can inform you that I'm Carly Shay and that this is Carly Says! _

_Freddie: And I'm Freddie Benson. _

_Carly: Tonight I presented you all with a question to open with. The question was what is and what isn't appropriate to discuss at a dinner party. The story is that I soon will be a part of a certain dinner party, joined by my co-host Freddie here, my brother Spence Shay – you know him, right? He's an artist – and his wife Monica. She expecting a baby, actually. _

_Freddie: Don't forget that Sam is gonna be there also. _

_Carly: I was getting to that Freddie, if you hadn't interrupted me. _

_Freddie: Oh. _

_Carly: As I was saying, we're having this dinner party, and I hate those dang things, because I never know what to talk about. I see these people all the time, every day, and yet I still have to find something to talk to them about. As if that isn't tough when everything I do concerns them. _

_Freddie: And we have a caller through on the phone, Car-ly. _

_Carly: Oh yes, that's true. Hello, who do we have with us on air? _

_Oscar: This is Oscar. _

_Freddie: 'Ello Oscar. _

_Carly: Oz. Can I call you Oz? _

_Oscar: You can call me anything, Carly Shay, I love you! _

_Carly: What do you know, an on-air love confession! _

_Freddie: You get them quite often, don't you, Carls? _

_Carly: It happens. Unfortunately, I can't really use them to anything since they're on air and not in real life. But anyway. Oz, you wanna talk about subjects to discuss at dinner parties? _

_Oscar: I'd be honoured to talk to you about anything at all, Carly Shay! _

_Freddie: I'm taking that as a 'yes'. _

_Carly: That's a 'yes'! Let's talk. _

_Oscar: …. _

_Carly: Oz? _

_Freddie: Oscar? _

_Oscar: Yeah? _

_Carly: It's time for you to speak, man! Please present us with a discussable subject. _

_Oscar: Me? _

_Carly: That is why you called us, buddy. _

_Freddie: Don't you have a subject? _

_Oscar: Honestly I just call every night, hoping to get through. This time I did. I just wanna hear your voice speak to me, Carly. _

_Carly: OK! So that's it from Oscar, folks! We'll be right back after another- _

_Freddie: -impromptu!- _

_Carly: -commercial break! _

**I Like to Mean What I Say, but it Don't Always Come Through. Because if I Say It All Again, Again, Again, It doesn't Make it All True. **

_Mhm, this actually smells very nice! _

"Hi Carls!"

Carly dropped her purse onto the messy kitchen floor and held on tighter to the bouquet of flowers she'd just purchased in the flower-shop down the corner. She'd decided to go with a beautifully made one with yellow flowers, hoping it'd lighten the mood.

Sam was busy cooking every possible sort of food in the kitchen. There was smoke everywhere, but a delicious scent of some sort of meat had hit the brunette's nostrils as soon as she entered the flat. Had it been any other thing, Sam had to do, Carly would have been scared to leave her alone in the apartment in charge, but regarding food, she had a strong – but still weird! - sense of faith in her former best friend.

Carly opened a cabinet to find a vase for the flowers. "I thought these would look pretty in the centre of the table."

Sam flashed her a huge smile. "Good idea! Yellow for friendship, huh."

"Does yellow mean friendship?" Carly questioned and glanced onto the flowers in her hand. That hadn't been her intention at all.

Sam nodded and checked on something in the oven.

Carly felt her forehead wrinkle as she filled the vase with water. "How do you know that yellow means friendship?"

Sam snorted. "I learned a thing or two in prison, y'know? My cell-mate was this crazy woman, who'd never done a thing wrong in her life, until she completely lost it when her husband cheated on her. She trashed their entire house and the mistress' flat."

Any word after 'cell-mate' was completely lost on Carly. "You've been in _prison_?"

Sam gave her a look of complete disbelief. "You expected differently?"

"I-I just thought that-" _I just never thought that it would go that far with you, Sam. _"I don't know what I thought. I guess I never really thought much about it." Carly said and bit her lip.

Sam turned around and leaned herself against the counter. "I completely screwed up after high school. Never went to college. Thought everything would work out in the end, but of course it didn't." she paused and looked at her black nails. "I didn't really function that well without you and Freddie around."

Carly knew that Sam wouldn't say that to make her feel guilty, because she wasn't that sort of person, but she couldn't help it. She felt a sting right in her heart and the breath left her lungs.

Turning around to stir something on the stove, Sam kept talking. "I ended up in jail a couple of times and I had some unfortunate friends. Melanie eventually got me out, let me stay at her place, and I got a couple of lame jobs here and there, cooking, waitress-ing mostly. I was lucky anyone even wanted to have me."

Carly placed the vase with the flowers on the table and took a step closer to her friend. She placed an awkward arm on Sam's shoulder, almost flinching by the contact that just felt unnatural. "Why didn't you come ask me for help?"

The blonde turned her head slightly, and their faces were inches from each other. "I wasn't aware that that was an option." she mumbled, absent-mindedly taking care of the food on the frying pan. "I mean... with the way that things were left with us. It was a pretty clear message. To me at least."

Carly dropped her hand again and took a step back. What was she doing? Who did she think she was, being all sweet and close with Sam when she _knew_ she had broken her heart? She couldn't even recognize Sam right now, so fragile and full of wisdom and regret – it wasn't like her at all. Who was she to stir those things in her?

_I'm no one. I ought to let her be. _

Sam cleared her throat. "But when Mel got pregnant with her second kid, there wasn't room for me, so I've been crashing here and there since then. Now I'm here."

Carly forced a smile. "And you can stay as long as you want." _I might regret saying this. _

"Thanks Carls." Sam said, "I really appreciate it. I just want us to be friends again. Like the good ol' days."

Carly stared at her and took a step back. Being friends again should sound good in her ears, shouldn't it? She'd missed her friendship with Sam in so many ways. But how come, when that all sounded perfect, she still felt so weird? She still had a dent in her heart somewhere?

She stumbled into a chair and quickly turned to rush into her bedroom to change.

_Why am I feeling so weird? _she couldn't help but question herself.

**Leave It All to Her. Just Leave It All to Her. **

"SPENCER SHAY!"

"SAMANTHA!"

They were a mess of limbs, hair and clothes as they fell into each other's arms for the first hug in ages. Carly was watching from the sidelines and she could tell how happy Sam was to see Spencer again, and also visa versa. She had always found it a bit awkward that her two best friends were so tight with her older brother, but right now she could see that it was true – even after all these years, they'd still missed each other, and it was like they'd never been apart.

"How's my favourite assassin?" Spencer questioned and ruffled Sam's untameable mane with his left hand. He was much taller than her still, but they looked so cute.

Sam replied something to Spencer, but Carly couldn't hear it, because Monica had waddled her way to her, strutting her huge pregnant belly. "Hi Carly. Thanks for having us." she said and gave her a polite hug.

Carly smiled. "It was all Sam's idea."

Monica glanced towards her husband. "I had no idea Spencer was so close with this Sam person."

"They did the weirdest things when we were teenagers." Carly explained with a whiff of her hand. She tried her best to focus all her energy on something that was not Monica's belly. "You wanna go have a seat? We're just waiting for Freddie."

"That'd be nice, thank you." Monica replied and carefully made her way to the table.

Carly gave Sam and Spencer another glance before she followed Monica to the table. The two of them were discussing something that seemed rather funny; they were laughing, smiling and enjoying seeing each other again. Carly smiled to herself and sat down next to Monica.

She didn't know why, but there was something quite fulfilling about seeing those two together again. It was like it had never stopped and nothing bad had happened.

Just for a second at least. Just for a second it felt better.

_**CARLY SAYS. **_

_Carly: Alright, hello people! We're back now after that very uncalled for commercial break, and since that last call we had was rather uhm, what do you say-? _

_Freddie: Horrible? _

_Carly: Nah. _

_Freddie: Freakish? _

_Carly: Nope. _

_Freddie: Then what? _

_Carly: It was downright frightening, that's what it was! And since that really freaked me – and my co-host slice technical producer Freddie – out, we'll not be taking anymore calls right this second. Instead I've decided to forget about the conversational subjects, because who knows, maybe my guests will be easily entertained, and I've decided to tell you all about something that happened to me the other day in Denny Park. _

_Freddie: Oh! It's been awhile since we had a personal story that did not involve Sam. Is this one of those? _

_Carly: I usually prefer referring to my current living situation since it's such a deep endless hole of ideas, but tonight, as a matter of fact, the story is not about Sam. _

_Freddie: Kudos to you. _

_Carly: Thank you, Freddie. _

_Freddie: So tell us what happened. _

_Carly: I was walking through Denny Park, I mean, I was dressed in my running clothes, but I'm a little out of shape because of my tight schedule, so I was just catching my breath and trying to locate the spot where Spencer's sculpture is gonna be – you know, Spencer Shay, the artist? He's making the new sculpture for Denny Park, but he also makes sculptures in private, call him if you're interested, he can really- _

_Freddie: Carly, getting off track here. _

_Carly: Oh, sorry. As I was saying, I was just catching my breath, when suddenly I almost get run over by a teenage boy on his skateboard! Following him are three other teens on their roller blades and skateboards. In the middle of a path which is clearly signed with a picture of a bicycle, a pair of roller blades and a skateboard with a huge cross on top! Can you believe it? I mean, the youth today! They have no respect whatsoever for authorities! I mean, I was never that disrespectful when I was young! _

_Freddie: That is true, folks, I've known Carly since we were kids. She's always loves authorities. _

_Carly: And that's the way things ought to be! _

_Freddie: Soo, do we dare take another call now, Carls? _

_Carly: I think we do dare. We're ready to hear some stories about awful teens – and other people for that matter – who disobey clear signs stating what is allowed and what is not allowed. But be sure to only call us at__206-421-5757_ _if you have an actual story to share._

_Freddie: We'll be right back!_

**Love Mixed With Fear is the Sweetest. It's the Strangest, Strongest Cocktail You Can Buy. **

"Man, I'm tired!" Carly moaned and threw herself onto Sam's makeshift bed that usually functioned as couch. She threw her hands behind her head and kicked up her feet.

Sam smiled to her from the kitchen where she was washing everything off before putting it in the dishwasher. "Well, you can just go to bed and I'll clean everything off. I don't mind."

Carly smiled to her from where she was lying. A real genuine smile. "Nah, I couldn't let you handle all that on your own. After tonight, you deserve to have help. I actually had fun."

Sam bent down to put their plates into the dishwasher and Carly got off of the couch to go clear off the table as well. She wasn't even lying. Her steps felt light, her mood ever lighter. I was a good evening. The flowers she had bought earlier still stood beautifully in the centre of the table, and so they would do for awhile, to remind her of this good evening.

"Well, I'm glad you had fun, Carls." Sam mumbled with the cocky smile on her face. "I don't know, I just-"

Carly froze. "You just what?"

"I don't know. Doesn't matter."

Carly stepped closer to her, with washing-cloth in hand. "No. What is it?" she raised an eyebrow.

Sam chewed her lip. "I just thought I noticed something, that's all."

Leaning herself against the counter, Carly was afraid to ask what was next. "What did you notice?" she whispered.

Sam swallowed loudly and dropped everything in her hands onto the table. She then turned to Carly, looking slightly scary with her hands on her hips and her hair completely messy. "What's the deal with you and Monica? There's something there. What is it? Do you not like her?"

Carly laughed nervously. She was not about to inform Sam of the true nature of her feelings towards Spencer and his wife and their current situation, because that would just be too embarrassing. "Why wouldn't I like her?" Carly exclaimed, her voice shriller than normally, "I think she's a hoot."

Sam raised an accusative eyebrow. "You think she's a.... _hoot_?"

Carly did that laugh again. "A hoot? Fun? I don't know what you kids say these days!"

She shifted on her feet, and Sam pulled the washing-cloth out of her hands. "Alright. Whatever you say, Carly."

Carly clenched her jaw and turned her back to Sam, just to indicate that this part of their conversation was over. She started randomly putting things into new places instead, not quite sure if she should just give up and opt for sleep. She cleared her throat. "I'm really sorry to hear what happened to you, Sam." she then whispered, looking lamely at the same spot for awhile. "It's hard for me to think about you being through that."

Sam didn't answer, but she wasn't moving either, Carly could hear that. She didn't know whether or not it was a good idea to actually bring this subject into their conversation, but it had been nagging her since earlier when they discussed it. She'd always known that Sam was a bully with her own ideas and that she didn't care about right and wrong, but the brunette had never thought that she'd actually break the actual law. It was a strange thought.

"Don't matter now." Sam replied, "It's in the past."

"I'm really sorry though," Carly continued, finally turning around to find Sam staring right at her. "about everything that happened. That things were that bad for you. But mostly, I'm sorry about how things ended with us. I see now that that wasn't fair to you."

A small smile found its way onto Sam's beautiful face. "Thanks Carls." she said, sounding almost surprised. "I think I really needed to hear that."

Carly offered her a small nod.

"You do know though, that there's someone else you owe an 'I'm sorry' too, right?" Sam continued.

Carly's eyes turned to the framed picture on her kitchen wall of her, Sam and Freddie when they were doing iCarly, and her eyes settled on the only boy she'd ever really been close to except Spencer. Sam was right. She really did owe Freddie an apology as well.

* * *

_Thank you everyone for tuning in once again! I'm so sorry about the delay, but hopefully things will go smoother from now on since I've got time off to revise a week from today, and though I will be revising like crazy, I still need a break once in awhile, so I'll -hopefully – be writing then. _

_Some of you have left wonderments and questions in your reviews for last chapter, and I've tried to answer them the best way I could, so I could 'justify' and explain the choices I make with these characters, and I hope you all feel OK that I do, because I know this story is a bit unconventional. _

_Anyway! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'll try to be back quickly. _

_**Disclaimer; **I don't own iCarly or any of the song titles. _


	5. Part Five

**WARNING: **_There is stronger language and actions in this chapter – more so than I usually have, so there is a part near the end, that should probably have the rating _**_M –_**_ you have been warned beforehand now ;) Please enjoy the chapter.

* * *

_

**She's Going Out Tonight, Doing Wrong, Two Returns a Right. La la la la la. They're Going Out Tonight. **

Sighing heavily, Carly took a step backwards, away from her mirror, so she could get the full satisfaction of her two-hour work with her appearance. She squeezed her eyes together and tilted her head slightly, a small smile occurring on her face. It was sort of a shame that she didn't go out more – she looked good, didn't she?

"You do, Carly, you look good." she mumbled and thoughtfully touched the ends of her long curly hair, she'd spent the last half hour trying to curl perfectly. In her tight black dress and bang! red stiletto heels, she was a beautiful sight, she had to admit that to herself. And she also had to admit that she now regretted not going out more, just to look like this and give herself an ego boost.

Sam appeared in the doorway. "Ya' ready to do this, Carly?" she asked.

Winking at herself in the mirror, Carly turned to smile at her friend. "Yes. How do I look?"

Sam gave her a once-over and a satisfied smile reached her lips. "You look good. It's a shame this is your first night out in practically your entire life. I'm gonna have to whip a few at some dudes, I can feel it."

Carly didn't know whether she should be scared or amused, but instead of thinking too much about that, she followed Sam into the hallway and admired her appearance as well from behind. Being the tomboy she was, Sam could have fooled anyone from behind if she'd had short hair; she was wearing jeans and a check patterned dress shirt with a black tie. From the front, it was evident that she was a girl; with her feminine features and the amount of make-up around her eyes, she still looked like a woman – though not a straight one.

Sam stuffed her wallet into her back pocket and Carly reached for her red purse and black jacket. "I don't know how you looped me into this." she told Sam, as they left the apartment, locking the door behind them.

Standing in the hallway, Sam reached out and touched a curl from Carly's styled hair. "I did nothing. You're letting your hair down."

Carly stuffed her key into her purse and the two of them set down the stairs to have a girls' night in town. Carly admitted, that now that she was actually going, she was very excited to experience the scene around town. She trusted Sam to take her to the right places and make the experience the best it could be. It had taken a lot of talking from Sam before she had finally given in and decided to tag along with Sam and Freddie (whom they were meeting there).

But now she couldn't wait. She had to agree with Sam – she did look sort of good with her hair down.

_**CARLY SAYS. **_

_Carly: Hello everyone, and welcome to another sleepless night of Carly Says! I am Carly Shay. _

_Freddie: And I'm Freddie Benson. _

_Carly: You're all probably wondering what we're going to discuss tonight, and I have a very good idea about that, but before we get into it, I have something I need to say. _

_Freddie: Oh. I have no idea what she's doing now. I am not in on this. Just giving you all a heads up. _

_Carly: That's very nice Freddie, and normally I would have pitched you everything, but since this is actually about you I couldn't really have done that. _

_Freddie: It's about me? _

_Carly: Yes. You see, dear listeners, dear fighters for what's wrong and right, a long time ago, I wasn't the correct person I am today. I was reminded of that a few days ago by someone very smart, and now I have decided to wrong a right I never really got over. _

_Freddie: I have a feeling what this is about, and Carly, I advice you not to do this on air. _

_Carly: But that's the entire point! I have to do it on air. That's the only way it's gonna be, Freddie. You want an apology or not? _

_Freddie: You're really gonna apologise to me? _

_Carly: Yup!_

_Freddie: Really? _

_Carly: Yes, I am. _

_Freddie: Then OK, Carly Shay, bring it on. _

_Carly: Freddie, I apologise sincerely for the harm I caused you through high school and some of college. I hope with all my heart that you can forgive me for treating you the way that I did, for using you like you were nothing to me, when really, you're the best friend I've ever had, the most reliable person in my world. I hope that after tonight, we can really start with a clean slate, and our friendship will be stronger than ever. _

_Freddie: You really mean this, Carly? _

_Carly: I just recently realized how wrong it is for me to lecture people about wrong and right when I've got some skeletons resting in the cupboard myself. _

_Freddie: I really appreciate this, Carly. I really do. _

_Carly: So we're good, aren't we, Fred? I mean – we're cool? _

_Freddie: Better than ever, Carls! _

_Carly: Fantastic! _

_Freddie: Yes. _

_Carly: And on that note, I'd like to take a commercial break, and we'll be back shortly again with a discussion about good highway behaviour! _

**It's Disgusting. It's Disgusting. **

Why the crap were people so fucking disgusting all the time?

That was the first thing Carly thought about, when she sat foot in the restroom at the club she, Freddie and Sam had decided to check out. Sam was at the bar, using more than her only two elbows to make it to the front for some drinks, while Freddie desperately tried to hold onto their table.

She did not want to think about either of their methods though, because she knew she'd disapprove. Instead, she'd decided not to think about wrong and right at all, because this was not work. It was play.

But she couldn't help herself when she saw what this room looked like.

_Loud banging from one of the stalls equals people fucking on the other side. Ew, _Carly told herself as she zigzagged through wet pieces of paper on the floor, not wanting to touch any of it. _Why are all people fucking morons? I'm gonna tell them off! _"Hey you two!" she snapped, hitting her palms against the door to said stall. "Go fucking home to do that shit! Other people have to pee!"

There was no response whatsoever from the banging couple, so Carly set off to the next stall, determined that this would be her last work tonight.

**But be Afraid to Fall, She Can't Catch You Through it All. **

"I am never doing _that_ again!" Carly moaned as she sat down onto the sofa, squeezing herself as close to Freddie as possible, so there was room for Sam as well.

Sam's face was red and her hair was dripping with sweat, "What are you talking 'bout, woman! That was _the_ dance of the night, I gotta say!"

Carly felt sweaty and gross just like Sam and all she could think about was how other people would think of her as disgusting and icky, but when she took a quick glance around the other seats near them, she realized that everybody who'd been dancing for just ten minutes were exactly as disgusting as she.

Not that she and Sam had been dancing for only ten minutes. To be true, they'd been out there for the past hour without a stop and her feet were hurting as hell! It had been pretty fun, but she'd hated it when strange guys had tried to squeeze their way in between her and Sam, because they were all perverted and she just wanted to dance with her best friend. Why couldn't they see that, and most importantly – why couldn't they understand a hint when she pushed them away several times?

Not that Sam wasn't anything like them. On more than one occasion, she'd made her way away from Carly to try and make a move at some hot girl she'd seen. During those times, Carly had felt oddly sad to be left alone and felt like everyone was giving her weird stares.

The brunette cleared her throat, _What is the matter with me today? I feel so... odd. _"It wasn't just one dance, they were plural." Carly said and tried to end it off with a little laugh.

"You guys looked good out there." Freddie announced. The poor guy had been left alone all through the evening, taking care of their table and their drinks.

Carly placed a loving arm around his shoulders, "Why don't you go dancing, Freddie? Meet some cute girl."

Freddie shrugged his shoulders and Sam laughed. "Freddie? Dancing! That's a sight for sore eyes! _Not_!"

Carly didn't even bother to tell her off. Instead she reached for her drink and took a long sip of it. It had been a while since she'd been drinking like this.

"Hey, I can score chicks, Sam!" Freddie objected with a high-pitched voice, which was proof enough to Carly that he wasn't that secure of his ability to uhm... _score chicks_.

"Not as well as I, Freddork." Sam replied, and Carly felt amused, because Sam had only been back in their lives for a short while, but already she was falling into old habits – habits that included calling Freddie less fortunate names.

Carly glanced around the room again as Freddie and Sam fell into a discussion about abilities to score, and her eyes settled on a beautiful girl with very long almost black hair. Her skin was tanned and she was wearing huge black glasses, that really did something for her face. She was chubby, but it suited her, and the most stunning thing about her was that – she was eyeing Freddie from across the dance floor.

Carly knew what she had to do. She owed him this, she really did.

Reaching a hand in to stop their conversation, Carly grabbed Sam's wrist. "Let's go dancing again!" she said and pushed Sam out of their booth. She leaned in close and placed a butterfly kiss on Freddie's cheek. "Unbelievably beautiful, black-haired girl across the room. Get her over here."

And while she hurried to follow Sam before the blonde got into any trouble, she saw Freddie turn his head in all possible directions to locate this girl. A smile came to her face, when she realized that the girl had already left her seat and was crossing the dance floor.

Sam grabbed her around the waist from behind and spun her shortly around in a circle. Carly laughed as her feet hit the floor again, and they started dancing; she had to admit, the rhythm of the music, the feeling of her drinks sloshing around in her stomach, the way her hair and clothes felt as if glued to her body – it all felt pretty damn good. If it was like this, letting her hair down, she would have to do it some more.

With a devious look across her face, Sam leaned in closer and whispered something in her ear. "I see a cute girl, I'll be right back, Carls."

Carly had no time whatsoever to actually tell Sam that she would rather prefer it if she stayed put, so she had to watch as the blonde woman zigzagged through dancing people, and the feeling of complete disappointment floated through her stomach, creating a nauseating mix with several Mokaïs, Smurfs and Sex on the Beaches. She covered her mouth momentarily and followed Sam, because standing there alone like some idiot was not an option.

Someone grabbed her arm from behind and she came to a halt, almost slipping in her three inch stilettos. Turning around with a swing of her hair, Carly came face to face with a very tall, very skinny blonde girl, who held on tightly to her arm. "Don't go over there." she whispered.

Carly had no idea what this was about.

A small, pretty girl with black skin nodded her head. "You don't wanna follow her. It's not pretty."

"Doesn't it bother you that your girlfriend keeps hitting on other girls?" the skinny girl questioned.

It took Carly a moment to realize what they were talking about, and only when it occurred to her, that everyone at this club thought that she was Sam's girlfriend, did she realize how stupid she must look right now, with Sam over there, hitting on some girl. She probably should have objected and told them that it did not bother her, because she and Sam were only friends, but all her drunken mind could come up with, was that she had to go over there and interfere, so she wouldn't look like such an idiot.

She ripped her hand out of the girl's tight grab. "I'm going over there." she said in a harsh voice, and as she turned to leave, she could hear the two women following her right away.

It only took her thirty seconds to locate Sam, who was leaning against a bar, chatting away with a short-haired, green-eyed girl, who was sitting on a barstool with a couple of friends. Stepping closer, determined to put a stop to this, she was interrupted before she had a chance to do so.

A muscular guy with spiky hair had pushed Sam away with a flick of his arm. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he bid at her with a sharp voice.

"Don't worry," Sam replied, seemingly recovering quickly from the push. "I'm just talking to the pretty lady, it's none of your business."

"It is my business." he said to her, "It's my girlfriend you're hitting on. Does she look like a dyke to you, huh? Do you think she likes to be hit on by butch women like you, do ya'?"

This is probably where Sam should have backed off, but Carly had to watch as she stroke again. "You think she wouldn't want to? Looks like a lesbian to me. You know, she has that vibe."

That was not the thing to say, because the guy stepped closer. "My girlfriend, she likes dick. She likes to be fucked good and long by me." he told Sam, his spit hitting her face in gross cascades.

As Sam opened her mouth to speak, Carly wanted to take a step closer to interfere, but the two women from before grabbed each of her arms and held her back. "You don't wanna do that." the small one said. "She'll get in trouble. She always gets in trouble."

Carly had no idea what to say to that, so she loosened her shoulders and stayed put.

"You think you can fuck her better than I can?" Sam asked the dude, not backing down at all. She was practically inviting him to slap her when she kept firing things like that back at him. "You think your dick can last longer than my fingers? I wouldn't be so sure about that, Romeo. I bet ya', she'd come harder and longer if she had a night in bed with _me._"

The words had barely left her mouth, before he sent her falling to the ground with a fist to the nose. An unmistakable sound of cracking was heard and she landed right on her tail bone. The girl they were fighting over, turned her head away in disgust, and though Carly didn't do so good with blood, she knew she had to do something now if things shouldn't turn more ugly. Sam was already getting up to go at him again, and thinking that that wasn't the best idea, her two new friends pushed her closer.

"This is your cue." the two of them whispered, so Carly stumbled forward and looked up at the intimidating dude.

"You'll have to excuse her." she whispered, not daring to look him in the eyes. "I apologise on her behalf."

Sam groaned from the floor, where she was getting up. From the looks of it, she might even have a concussion. "Stay out of this, Carly!" she hissed, getting ready to get right back at him.

He scoffed. "Keep your girlfriend in control from now on, will ya'?" he said, grabbed his girlfriend's hand and hurried through the throng of people, before the guards got to them.

Carly kneeled down to be on eye-level with Sam who was rather disorientated, though set on getting back at him. "Are you OK, Sam?"

"That was awesome!" the skinny girl said to Carly as they both joined them on the floor. "Way to get him off her back!"

"What the hell happened here?"

Carly turned her head to the side and saw Freddie coming their way, a scary and confused look edged across his face. "Sam got in a fight." she told him.

"There was no fight, Freddork." Sam replied, touching her nose with a hiss, "Miss Sunshine here made sure I didn't get a punch at him!"

"Your nose is broken." Freddie said, and helped Carly get her on her feet.

Sam made a face in his direction, even if it caused her great pain. "Thanks for the 411, Fredweirdo, I did not know that." she sarcastically shot back at him.

"The guards are coming!" one of Carly's – she wasn't sure which of them – new friends said.

A big guy stopped in front of them, with his arms crossed. "Any problems here?" he questioned them in a deep voice.

"We were just leaving, sir." Carly replied, not feeling like getting into a row with security about whoever punched whom. She knew that if Sam had a say in this, they'd be there, arguing, all night, because she thought it was unfair that they got thrown out, when she didn't even throw a punch. Instead of wasting their time like that, Carly would rather get to the closest emergency room so Sam could get her nose fixed and be checked for a concussion.

"All five of you," the guard said, giving them all a once-over, "out. Now."

And so they made their way through the crowed and onto the street outside. They pushed Sam onto the curb and Carly took a seat next to her, carefully wiping blood off of her face with a snippet of her dress. Freddie stood there, arms crossed, a sour expression across his face.

The skinny girl spoke up, "Damn that was awesome! You showed them a thing or two."

Sam gave her a look. "Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm Sabine." she replied, a huge smile on her face.

"And I'm Judith." the other girl laughed.

Freddie interrupted them, pretty pissed. "Thanks for getting us into trouble, Sam! You know, I was just hitting it off with Rebecca, and I hear there's a fight. What do I think immediately? Oh, that must be Sam! And now I'm on the street. Thank you... very much."

"Oh, shut up, Freddie!" Sam hissed at him.

"Thankfully for you – I got her number." Freddie continued, determined to stay mad at her for this incident.

"Well if you got her number, Freddie, then what's the problem?" Carly asked him. She didn't want to deal with them fighting right now. All she wanted was to catch a cab and make sure that Sam was OK. She was still pissed at her for hitting on other girls, but it seemed like ages ago that she had stood there, feeling drunk and slightly jealous, because suddenly she felt sober, and awkwardly aware of the fact that she hadn't wanted Sam to hook up with someone else.

She couldn't think of that now though, she had to fix Sam.

Sam rolled her eyes, "Listen to Carly, dork. Everything will work out for you. The girl will still be there in the morning, though I can't guarantee that she will still like you in the light of day."

"Sam!" both Carly and Freddie exclaimed.

"Sorry, Carly." Sam replied.

Judith interrupted them, "Wait a minute?" she said, and it seemed like a light dawned on her. "You two are Carly and Freddie! You're _Carly Says_! I thought your voice was familiar!"

Carly raised an eyebrow at them. "Yeah, I'm Carly Shay, and we're _Carly Says_. That's awesome, blah, blah, blah."

"I love your show." Sabine said, shuddering in the cold night air. "I love how you address important subjects these days. People are so not well behaved."

Freddie smiled at her. "Thanks."

Judith fixed her cell phone out of her pocket. "I'll go call a cab now. We need to get Sam to the emergency room."

"Oh really? I thought none of you noticed that I had a broken nose." Sam replied.

Carly gave her a look again and inwardly cursed her for ruining such a great night.

_**CARLY SAYS. **_

_Carly: You know those people, don't you? What am I talking about? Of course you do! Everybody knows those people who absolutely have to go start a fight with someone else on those exact evenings. A fight which could easily have been avoided, but instead ends up ruining the entire night for everyone who is just slightly involved. _

_Freddie: I know those people, I definitely know those people. _

_Carly: Yeah... so do I. They just – they just have to go and talk back to someone who is much bigger than them, because they think they can handle it, they're too damn proud, and you, you end up sitting at the emergency room for the rest of the night. _

_Freddie: I _really _know those people. _

_Carly: Yeah. Who doesn't? _

**Don't Give Me None of Your Aggravation, Saturday Night is Still Alright for Fighting. **

"You know, this is what gets me with you, Sam, it really is." Carly said as she leaned back in her hard, cold hospital chair, crossing her right leg over her left leg, "You always do these things. You can't just let it go, you have to go and ruin things, even when I'm actually having fun. This is why I don't let my hair down with you."

Sam gave her a leg and readjusted the bag of frozen peas she had sitting on her nose. "You make it sound like I always do these things, Carly. I don't."

Carly snorted. "You do. You have since we were kids. Even when we did _iCarly,_ you had to go and be sent into juvenile detention when my father was finally going to watch a live Webcast of our show. You always do these things."

"I did that one time!" Sam objected in a shrill voice.

"That is so not the only time you've been in juvenile detention, and you've been worse places after that!" Carly hissed back, referring to how Sam had been in actual prison before they met again. Which was something that still bothered Carly a lot.

Sam made a face. "I knew it was a mistake telling you about that."

Carly scoffed. "And I knew it was a mistake letting you back in. See where it got me. The emergency room."

Sam turned on her chair so she didn't have to look at her, and Carly stared lamely into the wall, fuming endlessly at how this night had ended. To think she actually had fun before they were thrown out of the club! To think she even felt... she gulped... jealous, because Sam was trying to score with another girl. She couldn't even believe it.

But at least Freddie had met a cute girl. And those two women – Judith and Sabine – they were pretty sweet, and Carly had a feeling that it wasn't the last they'd hear of them, because Sam had typed in their numbers on Sabine's cell phone.

The three of them had left a while ago, but Carly felt it was her duty to stay and make sure that Sam was taken care of, and that she got home without having to walk. It would probably take well into the morning hours, but Carly knew that she had to do this, even if she was pissed at her friend right now.

"Samantha Puckett?"

They both looked up to find a nurse with a clipboard in front of them, and Sam spoke up, "Yup. I'm she."

The nurse looked at Carly. "You gonna stay here and wait?"

"Sure." Carly said. "Just get me if you need me."

The nurse nodded and lead Sam out of there. Carly heaved out a deep sigh and closed her eyes for a second. She knew that she and Sam had just recently tried to patch things up again, to mend their broken friendship, but she wasn't sure if she could handle this. She wasn't sure if she could be a part of a life like this, because she liked order, so liked her everyday routine. And though Sam was so important to her, though it pained her to even think of losing her again, she wasn't sure if this was a life that she could have.

Opening her eyes again, she knew that there was only one person she could talk to about this.

She was going to call Spencer.

* * *

_Thank you so much for tuning in once more. I'm sorry that I seem to be so slow with updates, but I'm really trying to squeeze some writing in. I hope that the language wasn't too bad in this chapter and that none of you were offended, but I just tried my best to piece together a believable scene that could actually happen in real life. _

_Anyways. Thank you so much for the reviews for the last chapter. I'd love to hear from you once more. And btw, I tried counting the chapters together, and as far as I got, we've crossed the middle of the story, so I'm betting it'll be maybe... eight chapters? Thought I wouldn't want you to hold me on that, things might change by next chapter ;) _

_**Disclaimer; **I don't own iCarly. _


	6. Part Six

**It's the Only Thing I Can Do, I Can Pretend You're See Through. **

"Carly?"

"..."

"Carls?"

Trying not to acknowledge her presence, Carly ignored Sam and turned the volume up higher on _Sex and the City_.

Sam scoffed. "Oh? So that's how it's gonna be, huh? You just ignoring me now?"

_If I say that I am ignoring you, then I'm really not ignoring you, which I am, so I'm just gonna keep quiet and watch Carrie and Mr. Big_, Carly told Sam in her thoughts and pressed the volume button further.

"Well that's rich, you ignoring _me_." Sam said, entering Carly's bedroom and ending in a position directly between Carly's eyes and the TV set – which was probably where she had planned to be, because that would annoy Carly the most. "You can't seriously be mad at me for picking up a fight last Saturday!"

Some sort of recognition must have shown on Carly's face, because Sam shook her head in disbelief.

"Oh you are!" she placed both hands in her sides. "You seriously can't mean that, Carly... He started it, I didn't even get to go at him. I'm the one with the broken nose on my face!"

Carly sighed and turned up the volume even higher, still not looking at Sam, but pretending she wasn't there at all, that she could see right through her. Apparently, her act was working because Sam let her hands drop and went for the door.

_That's it.. move along now. I don't wanna see you and your stupid broken nose in here! _

She stopped in the door though, giving one last look at the brunette. "And you say I'm the immature one with me getting into a fight... Who's the immature one now, ignoring me when I wanna talk seriously?"

As she left, Carly immediately turned the volume down to an acceptable level again. She bit her lip and threw back her head with a groan. How come, even when Sam was being such an idiot, she still somehow managed to be right?

She had to stop ignoring her. She couldn't stand immaturity.

**The Girl Who Murdered Love – She's the Queen of Pain and Hurt. **

Carly threw her jacket on the hanger by the door and kicked off her sneakers. It had been some show tonight, and all she wanted to do was get some food and then get some sleep. She'd been prepping with Freddie since five o'clock this afternoon and hadn't had anything to eat since she left to meet him. She had a killer headache throbbing in the back of her head so an aspirin would be nice too.

She froze however though, when an unmistakable sound was heard from the living room.

Turning off the lights in an instant, Carly crept closer, tiptoeing so they wouldn't hear her. She ignored the lump that had somehow formed in her throat and tried to breathe calmly.

_Who the fuck is with Sam at this hour? And how long has she been here! I left ten hours ago, so it could be awhile... _Carly mused to herself, not feeling any better by any of the thoughts she had. This girl – whoever it was – could have been alone with Sam since around five o'clock – that was a lot of alone-time.

Carly peeked around the corner of the doorway into the living room, but immediately retrieved her eyes to the dully lit hallway. Curled beneath Sam with her legs spread wildly apart was none other than Sabine from last Saturday. There was no mistaking her blonde hair and incredibly long legs. She was right there, beneath Sam, her breasts poking delightfully into the air. She was crying sounds of happiness as a just as naked Sam towered above her, her curly mane spilling across her body.

Trying to calm her breathing and her rapidly beating heart, Carly rushed down the hallway, suddenly positive that they wouldn't hear her, even if she crashed into something. She closed her door with a light smack and fell onto her bed, without stripping out of her clothes at all. Reaching for her pillow, she buried her head into her mattress and tried to cover up the sounds from the living room, while she refused to let the tears, which threatened to spill, fall.

_**CARLY SAYS. **_

_Carly: Alright, alright, so I bet that you have all tried having the feeling of complete confusion regarding a person, right? I mean, there's all the dos and don'ts and it's all very confusing, and when there's someone you really care about, it can be really hard to separate those two things, right? At least for me it can be. Because when you really can about someone, you also know that you can be yourself no matter what it's like, that you can do your worst... _

_Freddie: That is so true! Let me tell you something, guys, sometimes when Carly is really caught up in work, she doesn't leave the studio for days, and she can sit here, talking to you guys, looking her worst, and I have to watch her. But it's OK, because Carly knows I love her no matter what. _

_Carly: That's exactly what I'm talking about, Freddie, though I would have preferred if that stayed between you and I, and not you, I and our thousandths of listeners... _

_Freddie: Oh. My bad.. _

_Carly: Anyway! You know that they'll love you no matter what, so it's easier to get mad at them, also because they hurt you more than other people do. But still, that does not give you the right to treat them badly, does it? I know we've all been there, hurt people we shouldn't have hurt, because of something completely silly that only matters between close friends. So that's what we're going to talk about tonight guys! We'll be taking calls all night... _

_Freddie: Here at __Freedom 570 KVI, 206-421-5757. _

_Carly: This is Carly Shay! _

_Freddie: And Freddie Benson. _

_Carly: You're listening to Carly Says! _

_Freddie: So while we wait for our first exciting caller, why don't you tell us about a fight you picked without any real substance? I know you've done it a bunch of times with your bother... _

_Carly: Spencer Shay – the artist! _

_Freddie: Yeah, so tell us, Carls! _

_Carly: Well, we used to fight over silly things, but mostly we get along great. Though I can get mad at him when I really shouldn't. Like, when he's trying to do something nice for me, and it ends all wrong, I still know he did it because he love me, yet I get mad a him. _

_Freddie: That's something you only do when you love someone. _

_Carly: Exactly my point. _

_Freddie: Oh. I hear that we have a caller through. _

_Carly: Who do we have with us on the line? _

_Aaron: Hello, this is Aaron. _

_Freddie: Hi Aaron. _

_Carly: Hi Double-A. _

_Aaron: Hi Carly, hi Freddie... I almost wanna say 'hi Sam' too! _

_Carly: I can hear you used to watch iCarly. _

_Aaron: I did. My twin sister and I loved the show, never missed one episode. _

_Freddie: Wow, that's something. _

_Carly: It really is. So. We have a dedicated fan with us tonight. Are you a dedicated listener as well? _

_Aaron: That I am. _

_Carly: Well then you should know how this goes. Usually, when we get a call, the caller – in this case, that's you, Double-A – starts talking about some good or bad behaviour! So would you please-? _

_Aaron: Sure, can do. _

_Freddie: Thank you, Aaron. _

_Carly: Thanks, Double-A. _

_Aaron: As I mentioned before, I have a twin sister. And there's just something about twins. They have a closer connection of some sort, right? At least I know I'm closer to my twin sister, than I am to my big sister. There's this thing between twins. And it also gets so much easier to get mad at each other. We used to think of the same things all the time, get the same ideas all the time, crave the same food, want the same things – it's not easy being a twin. But I trusted my sister so much! So, naturally, we had the same taste in potential boyfriend/girlfriend materials._

_Carly: Whoo, that doesn't sound too good. _

_Freddie: No, it really doesn't. _

_Aaron: It's not. See, I fell in love with my first serious girlfriend in high school and that was all good. Until my sister fell for her older brother. _

_Carly: Dang, she did not! _

_Freddie: That can really mess something good up. _

_Aaron: So I naturally got mad at her for dating him. So she broke it off, she completely understood me, that's what's so great about her. But I felt so guilty, making her stop seeing someone she really enjoyed spending time with. And I hated seeing her so sad afterwards. But the time when I did it, it felt like it was the right thing to do, because I was thinking about myself, thinking about my girlfriend and I, and it was so easy to get mad at her for being with him. _

_Carly: That's true. I think we've all been there, wanting a friend or a sibling to break it off with someone because we dislike that person. And if it doesn't get out in the open, it just burns up inside of you, building itself up, bigger and bigger, and sometime – that thing is gonna burst right up your throat and out your mouth. _

_Aaron: Exactly, and then things will be said, that shouldn't be said. But still – it doesn't naturally make it OK for me to stay mad at her for dating him. I only could because I knew she'd love me no matter what I did. _

_Freddie: Thank you for sharing, Aaron. _

_Aaron: Oh, it's no problem. _

_Carly: No really. It was. Thank you Double-A. _

_Freddie: And on that note! _

_Carly: ...it's time for a commercial break. We'll be right back. _

**Hey Jealousy, Hey Jealousy. **

When she tiptoed into the kitchen around noon the next day, Carly was afraid to find out if Sabine was still there or not... She had managed to fall asleep after the two had stopped going at it in the living room, so she'd gotten around five hours, which were enough to keep her going for a while – she'd take a nap before work though.

Turning the corner, Carly found the love-birds eating brunch at the round kitchen table. Sabine was wearing one of Sam's dress shirts and Sam was delightfully chewing a piece of bacon in only a sports bra and a pair of boxers.

"'Morning Carls!" she mumbled through the meat.

"Nice to see you again, Carly." Sabine added, a hint of pink creeping up her cheeks.

Carly opened the fridge and picked out a juice box. She turned around, tearing the straw off of the box. "Good morning you two."

Sam's face lit up – she was probably happy to have Carly speaking to her again. "Sorry. We didn't hear you get in last night. Were you home late?"

Carly cleared her throat, refusing to put a certain time on her arrival, because she didn't want them to know that she'd heard them. "I don't know. It wasn't bad."

"Did you have a good show last night?" Sabine asked, without a doubt trying to make polite conversation. She picked up her coffee mug and took a long sip of a strongly smelling coffee.

Carly smiled and ordered herself to take a seat on the kitchen counter and engage in a polite conversation. "I think so. We had a lot of listeners last night, that's for sure." she told them, and sucked the straw on her juice box.

It actually somehow managed to squeeze her heart into a painful twist when she watched the two of them interact and thought about what they'd been doing last night. She was so angry with Sam, still pissed at her for that fight Saturday night, but now even more because she'd brought another girl back to the apartment and fucked her on Carly's expensive couch. She had no idea when she'd blow up at Sam – but she was going to do it at a time when they were alone. She just knew that at some point, she wouldn't be able to live with all these women coming in and out, and all Sam's disgusting ways, which were totally the opposite of how Carly wanted things to be.

Sabine nodded in response and turned her head to Sam's. "You've got some grease on your chin." she giggled and reached a finger out to rub it off.

Sam smirked. "Thank you." she replied, kissing her lips repeatedly, before she returned to her food.

Carly managed to hold back a scoff, and reached across the table for her cell phone, which had been lying there since last night. She quickly scrolled through her contacts and found the number she was looking for.

_Meet me for coffee in 30 minutes? _

She hit send and jumped off the table. "I'm going out. I'll be home later." she told them and quickly rushed into her bedroom to get changed. She couldn't resist smacking the door loudly behind her.

She didn't think they noticed, though.

**She Can't Take it Anymore, She's Going to Go Insane, She's so Angry, Angry, Angry. **

"You're mad about something." Judith cleverly observed when she took a seat opposite of Carly with a coffee in hand around 40 minutes later.

Carly was still fuming in her seat even after downing a coffee before Judith got there. As soon as she'd left the apartment, her rage seemed to have tripled somehow, because if Sam had been there right now, she was sure she would have hit her. "You make good observations." the tallest brunette gritted through her teeth.

Judith flashed her a smile. "Well yeah."

Carly reached for her second cup of coffee and didn't care that she burned her tongue.

Her new friend cleared her throat. "So. Care to tell me what's gotten your panties in a twist?"

Carly slammed her cup into the table again, not caring that coffee spilled everywhere around it. She clenched her fist together and stammered out, "Do you know where Sabine has been all last night? Do you know where she is right now? I'll tell you where she's at. She's at my apartment, eating breakfast with Sam, after they fucked all night on my expensive couch, that's where she's at!"

A flicker of realisation seemed to dawn on Judith, because for a second, a shadow seemed to take her face, but then she let her eyes down. "I should've known." she whispered. "Sam is just Sabine's type."

"Well, Sabine is sorta Sam's type!" Carly sneered out, "Except, that differs a lot from day to day!"

Judith sighed heavily. "You want me to talk to Sabine about it? Tell her to leave Sam alone? I mean – she's not a horrible person, she would have never gone after her, if she'd known how much you wanna be with her, and I-"

"Excuse me?" Carly held up a finger to stop the other woman from talking, "What did you say? _How much I wanna be with her_? I don't wanna be with Sam! I don't even like Sam as a person!" Carly sneered out, aware of the fact that her voice was quickly reaching shrill. "I'm not even _gay!_"

"Oh." Judith cocked an eyebrow in confusion and lifted her coffee to her lips. "Then I'm an idiot."

Carly was on fire. She didn't know why Judith had thought what she had thought, but it was insulting and she was going to make that clear to her. "How could you even think I'm gay? Do I look gay to you? Do I look like one of Sam's many bimbos? No. I think not."

Judith chuckled in her seat and Carly stared at her with an open mouth. "I'm sorry." she said, shaking her head, "I'm sorry Carly, but if you had left it with 'I'm not even gay' I think I could have believed you slightly. But that you continue your clarification, I'm just... I'm just not buying it."

Carly cleared her throat. Now much more calm. "Buying what?"

"That you're not gay. That you're not into Sam." she shot her a warm smile. "It's written all over your face, girl, you're in love. And right now you're hurt because Sam went ahead and banged some other girl on your couch."

Carly could feel that familiar lump in her throat. "I am not in love with Sam!"

"Alright, alright..." Judith said, quickly retrieving her observations and leaning back in her seat. "If you say so, Carly, if you wanna keep being in denial, then that's fine with me. Just... just realize it someday, will ya'? You're gonna be miserable inside that closet of yours. In the long while, it's not so roomy."

Carly made a face at her. "Don't talk to Sabine!" she told her, before she grabbed her purse and hurried out of there.

**You And Me, Can't You See, We're Playing With Fire? Tell Me Now, Do You Feel This Burning Desire? **

Storming through her entire apartment, Carly ignored Sam's subtle 'hi' from the living room. As far as Carly noticed, Sabine had left the apartment, but she couldn't be sure, because she was set on getting to her bedroom so she could get all her anger out – by punching her cushions, screaming into a pillow, something – because it was driving her completely insane.

She threw her purse onto the floor and continued to walk back and forth a few paces, unsure of how to handle this anger inside of her. She hadn't been pissed like this for many years; not since she and Sam split up many years ago. And wasn't it a bad sign, that as soon as Sam was back in her life, she continued to get pissed more than once every day?

_It's a bad sign, it's a fucking bad sign!_, Carly told herself, clenching her fists by her sides, _I just wanna get her out of my life again, it's not healthy, being this angry all the time! It's not fucking healthy! _

"Carls?"

Flipping around with a whip of her hair, Carly turned to see Sam poking her head through the doorway. She had a curious look across her face, but Carly couldn't deal with her presence, she couldn't. "What?" she snapped.

Sam was surprised to hear her tone. "Where did you go?"

"Could you just leave, Sam? I don't wanna talk to anyone right now, especially not you." Carly continued to hiss at her, falling onto her bed, face first.

Sam stepped into the room, now clearly pissed off also. "Why don't you wanna talk to _especially _not me?"

"Especially not you, huh? Are you aware that you just used to negatives in one sentence, therefore making it positive?" Carly snapped at her, sitting up again, staring her right in the eye, "Huh? Could you please just learn some English!"

Sam made a face and came even closer, hands on her hips. "Oh, excuse me if I'm not fancy like you are! If I don't speak perfect English! It doesn't even matter, okay? Because I have no idea what we're fighting about now, but when you insult me, I insult you right back!"

Standing up as well, so they were on eye-level, Carly poked her right in the stomach. "Well, your insults would be much more accusing if they were accurate, Sam!"

"_Your insults would be much more accusing if they were accurate, Sam!_" Sam mocked in a whiny voice. "Well!" she hissed, "I have no idea what to do with you, Carly! One minute you hate me, the next we're having fun, now you're mad at me again! And I have – _Goddamnit_! - no idea what I did wrong!"

Crossing her arms across her chest, Carly snapped back, "Well, if you don't know what you did wrong, I'm not gonna tell you!"

"Oh, so you're not gonna tell me?" Sam asked her, cocking an eyebrow up to help get her point across. "Well that's mature, Carly. How old are you now? Five!"

Hating that Sam was right about something, Carly was pissed off even more. "You have no idea about maturity, Sam. You don't care about other people, don't care how they feel, what they wanna do – everything is just Sam, Sam, Sam!"

Sam put up a fake, cold laugh. "I'm Sam, Sam, Sam? Have you looked at yourself, Carly? All you ever do is talk about yourself! You completely undermine Freddie on _Carly Says_, even after you've apologised to him. You correct people when they do the slightest thing wrong, even though you're no angel yourself. You're so pissed off at people all the time, it's not even healthy!"

Carly swallowed hard, not knowing what to say back to her.

"And," Sam continued, "you're so concerned about what other people do, you don't even realise what you do yourself. Plus, do I need to mention, that the way you've shamelessly promoted Spencer on your platform is completely rude and haven't helped his sculptures at all? People find it pathetic, Carly. _Pa-the-tic_!"

Staring right at her, Carly could feel the goosebumps rising quickly on her arms. She wasn't sure whether or not she had any strength to give some back after the way Sam completely overruled her with all her accusations. She looked into the ground. "You, Sam, you might say that I'm immature," she whispered, now looking up at her again, feeling the need to defend herself somehow, "but still, what I said about you is true, you can't see what's right in front of you. You bring strange girls home and fuck them on my couch! That's disgusting, Sam, it really is."

Sam took a step back and shook her head. "Why didn't you just say so, huh?"

"I don't know."

"You were afraid, weren't you? You didn't wanna tell me, because you were afraid that I was going to figure it out."

Biting her lip, Carly couldn't help but question, "Figure what out?"

Sam had a cocky smile on her face when she replied, "Figure out that you were jealous."

"_I'm not jealous_!"

Letting out a long, drawn-out sigh, Sam shook her head and stuck her hands into her pockets. "You know what, Carly? I can't talk to you. One minute, you pull me in, the next you push me away. I can't live like this."

Carly looked at her feet. "Maybe it'd be better if you moved then."

"Yeah," Sam replied, "maybe so."

* * *

_Thank you so much for the reviews from the last chapter! I'm glad that some of you still seem to be enjoying this, though I think I might have lost some readers somewhere down the road due to my slow updating. I really tried to update quicker this time, I really did. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter as well? It was one of those I had really been looking forward to writing. _

_Please drop me off your thoughts, I'd love to know. :) _

_Btw, the last 'title' is from a song that I'm so in love with at that moment. It's called 'Playing With Fire' and it's by Paula Seling & Ovi, and was Romania's contribution to the Eurovision Song Contest – they placed third. _

_**Disclaimer; **I don't own iCarly. _


	7. Part Seven

_**CARLY SAYS. **_

_Carly: Good evening everyone, you are listening to Carly Says... _

_Freddie: …. _

_Carly: …._

_Freddie: Uhm. Yes. I'm Freddie Benson. _

_Carly: … _

_Freddie: And she's Carly Shay. And this is... Carly Says. Wait. She already said that. So scratch that. Well! Carly? Carls, don't you have something to say? An intro of some sort? We just introduced ourselves. _

_Carly: I don't have an intro. _

_Freddie: You don't have an intro? You don't have a morally themed story to share with me and the rest of the world? _

_Carly: Can't say that I have, Freddie. _

_Freddie: But you always experience something that pisses you at least mildly off. _

_Carly: Not today. Not this week. _

_Freddie: But... what will we talk about then? You sure you didn't experience something bad? _

_Carly: A pigeon ate my sandwich in the park today. _

_Freddie: A pigeon ate your sandwich? That the best you can do? _

_Carly: A pigeon did eat my sandwich. I just put it on a napkin on a bench in the park. I was going to eat it in a second. I just had to open up my soda. _

_Freddie: And then the pigeon ate your sandwich? Christ! Bad pigeon, bad pigeon! Shame on you, all pigeons of the world! _

_Carly: Yes. _

_Freddie: And then what happened? _

_Carly: Nothing more happened. _

_Freddie: That's the end of the story? _

_Carly: That's the end of the story._

_Freddie: Exciting things are still happening everyday! Be careful people, if you go to the park and leave your sandwich on a bench, it might get eaten by a pigeon. Yes, now I'm scared to go to the park... _

_Carly: You're making fun of me. _

_Freddie: I'm not making fun of you. _

_Carly: Yes you are. But I can't even get mad at you. _

_Freddie: I hear that we have a caller through on the phone! Who's with me? _

_First caller: You guys suck! _

_Second caller: Go off air! _

_Freddie: That's uncalled for. I mean, just because we have one bad show, doesn't- oh, they hung up. Wonderful. OK, alright. So... Since the only bad thing that happened to Carly this week involves a pigeon, we'll be talking about pigeons tonight. Or perhaps I should expand a bit and just leave it out there and say that we're just talking about birds in general? I guess I'll do that. If anyone – and here I'm just talking at the top of my head – has a story to share about birds – any bird will be just fine, thank you – then I'll love to hear all about it. Carly will too. Though she's not saying much... at the... moment. _

_Carly: I'll be happy to hear, because the other day... _

_Freddie: Yeah! _

_Carly: The other day, a bird pooped in my hair. _

_Freddie: A pigeon again, I guess? _

_Carly: I don't know. Maybe. Could be a pigeon. But it pooped all over me, and I had to-_

_Freddie: OK, we have another caller through with us! Please tell us a story, will ya'? _

_Spencer: Stop the show, Freddie. _

_Freddie: Spencer is that you? _

_Carly: ...Spence? _

_Spencer: Stop the show, Freddie. You've really tried your best, even if you haven't had much to work with. _

_Monica: But you're not really Carly, and you're not funny the way she is. Though we admire you for trying so hard. _

_Spencer: We really do, but if we have to listen to this for one more night, our ears will bleed. _

_Freddie: My ears are bleeding. Badly. _

_Monica: Stop the show, Fred! _

_Spencer: Quit while you're ahead. _

_Carly: But- _

_Freddie: And as of right now, there is no more Carly Says! I'm making a decision here, Carly, and that's it. _

_Carly: Freddie... _

_Spencer: Good for you, Freddie. _

_Freddie: Everyone, thanks for listening, I'm sorry for the past few weeks and how they've been so horrible... if anyone is still listening, kudos to you! I don't know when we'll be back – if we'll be back... but, right now, we're taking a much needed break. This was Freddie Benson. _

_Carly: And Car-car- _

_Freddie: And Carly Shay. This was Freddie Benson and Carly Shay of Carly Says! Thank you and goodnight. _

**This Emptiness is Killing Me, and I'm Wondering Why I've Waited So Long? **

"There's so empty in here now." Carly whispered to herself, running a finger across the kitchen table. Her eyes sought the entire room out, lingering on every possible surface to see if there was something leftover from Sam and the time she had spent living there.

_There's so fucking empty in here now. She was the thing keeping this place alive. _

Turning around, Carly went straight for the refrigerator, but she did not open it. Instead, she reached out and held a finger to the piece of paper which hung there, a curled note which had been sitting on the kitchen table the evening Carly had come home and found all of Sam's things gone.

"_We had a good run_." Carly read aloud, the words getting caught in her throat one by one, "_Thanks for letting me stay here. I'd hoped it was going to last longer._" she needed a good long fresh batch of new air here. "_I really hope you'll learn to take things more upside down, Carls. For you own sake. Sam_."

_Sam_, Carly thought to herself and traced the outlines of her name with her fingernail. She swallowed hard and turned back around to face her kitchen and living room. Reaching a hand up, she brushed her cheek off, before trailing across the floor to sit down on her couch – or Sam's old bed, whichever she preferred. Carly let herself fall back into the soft cushions and breathed out heavily. Everything looked so different from this angle. It looked like something Sam would really love.

Covering her mouth to hide the sobs which were quickly erupting from her stomach, Carly let the tears fall freely.

**She Knows It's All the Same, Another Time and Place. Repeating History, and She's Getting Sick of It. **

She needed milk, bread, eggs and ham, tomatoes, toilet paper, coffee beans, and stick of gum.

Walking through the long, cold isles of her usual grocery shopping place, Carly barely managed to pull out the items she needed, let alone carry her basket. It was raining like hell outside, and she was leaving a trail of water behind her as she went, and her raincoat was dripping and her hair was like glued to her head. Usually she liked the rain, but not as much as it had been raining today. Rain was good once in awhile, but it was just too much for her right now. She scrunched her nose.

_Did I forget my wallet? I didn't, did I? _

She quickly padded the pocket of her oversized cheap raincoat and sighed in relief when she realized that her wallet was right there. If she had had to go all the way back and get it, she wouldn't have gone back, she would have rather starved.

Grabbing the toilet paper from the shelf, she made her way towards the cashier, as that was the last item she needed for today. There wasn't a long line, so there was only one cash register open, and Carly was in her own thoughts as she got in behind the last person in line.

The woman in front of her, who had a lot of items in her cart, turned to Carly with a sigh. "It's raining today, huh."

"Yeah." _Nice one Sherlock, did you need the newspaper to tell you that? _

"The rain's good, though not when it's that much. My son's soccer game will probably be cancelled now. The grass is too slippery."

"Yeah." _Cool, so let your son play soccer. It's good for him to get some dirt on his perfect pants. _

She extended her hand. "I'm Patricia Holden."

Being polite, Carly extended her hand as well, "Carly Shay."

She got a curious smile on her face. "_The_ Carly Shay?"

Carly shrugged her shoulders.

"Carly Shay of _Carly Says_?"

"That would be me." Carly replied, tripping lightly on her feet from left to right. "You might wanna move towards the cashier, there's room for your groceries on-"

The woman did not notice her vain attempt of participating in the conversation. "Gosh, we love your show, my husband and I, we think it's so great how you tell people off when they do something wrong! I mean, how hard is it to get how to behave? The world would be a much better place if everyone just behaved more- HEY!"

Carly almost jumped in surprise when Patricia Holden yelled out in surprise. Some young guy had slipped in from right and taken her spot in the line because she hadn't moved forward when the line did.

"Why are you cutting right in front of me?" Patricia asked. "It was almost my turn, I've been waiting in line."

The guy gave her an I-don't-believe-you look. "You didn't move, and I don't have time for this."

Patricia's mouth fell open. "But I've been waiting in line forever! Do you see all these people in line?" she gestured towards the rather short line behind Carly and herself. "They've been waiting too. Do you think it's fair that you just slip in there, do you think you're better than them?"

The guy shrugged. "No, I don't. But they probably don't have time to wait for you to finish your conversation either. I'm just moving things along."

"You can't cut in front of me!" Patricia argued, her voice quickly reaching shrill. "You can't!" she turned her head to the other customers. "Are you okay with him cutting in front of you like this?"

No one replied and Carly tried to withdraw herself into the shadows of the the shelf with shampoos.

Patricia now turned to her. "Are _you_ gonna let him get away with this? You're Carly Shay, you're not going to, are you?"

Carly swallowed loudly as Patricia watched her with expectant eyes.

"Well?"

Dropping her basket to the floor, Carly pushed her way through the line and walked out the doors. She couldn't believe the fuss that Patricia had just made over one person in line. That had been embarrassing and completely not necessary. How could she not see how silly she was being? It was one person with what, three items in his basket?, when she herself had a full cart with useless items? She couldn't believe people were so righteous.

She couldn't believe that...

_I can't believe that I used to be like that. _

**And She Doesn't Know How to be Fine When She's Not. **

Freddie reached a hand out and gently touched the ends of Carly's hair, which was pulled back into a very tight, very high ponytail. He wondered, "You started wearing your hair up again. Why is that?"

Carly glanced briefly at the microphone and earpieces on the table in front of them. "When it's down, it gets caught in the wires." she flatly replied.

Freddie nodded, seemingly understanding. "You looked better with your hair down, though."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

He glanced at their things in front of them, old notes, newspapers, the small platform from which he controlled everything. "Are we ever gonna talk about how things ended with the show?"

Carly gave him a short look. "No."

"Okay."

There was a long pause between the two of them. Though they were supposed to be best, friends, she couldn't talk to him and he couldn't talk to her. She wasn't sure what she was ever going to say, because she knew that whatever he wanted to talk about, she didn't want to mention. Never had the air between them been thicker.

Carly thought of something. "How's it with you and Rebecca?"

"We've been out a few times. It's good."

"Oh."

Another long pause came between them and this time Carly didn't think of something.

Freddie sighed. "You seem sad these days, Carls."

She fidgeted with an old stack of papers on the desk. "I'm OK."

"You know you can talk to me, right?" he quickly questioned, eyeing her from his seat. "Are you aware of the fact that your eyes seem puffy?"

She clenched her jaw and gave him a stern look. "I haven't been crying."

"Didn't say that. Just said your eyes seem puffy."

She rubbed them a long while and spun around in her chair. "Must be the allergies." _Good one, Shay, you don't even have allergies. You don't have allergies. You don't have your fun attitude. And you don't have... _

"You should wear your hair down though." Freddie observed.

_And you don't have Sam. You definitely do not have Sam. _

**It's Over, It's Busted, I Love You, It's Useless. **

Coffee with Judith today was a bit better than coffee with Judith a couple of weeks ago. So far Carly hadn't stormed out on her in anger, which was always progress, right? She was actually enjoying her coffee and just liking that she was having a normal conversation with Judith that did not involve her and Sam and _Carly Says_ – that they were just talking about Judith and her work and when they were going to go out again and tear the dance floor apart.

"Now that you're not working nights anymore, we should totally do dinner." Judith said, a small smile on her face. "I mean, before you get your platform back. You guys were much better than that lame music program they're airing now."

Carly couldn't help the small smile on her face. They had been better. And they'd been different. Which was what made them better in the first place. "We should do dinner." she replied, nodding her head a little. "We can have it at my apartment."

Judith sipped her coffee, "Sounds good."

Carly really was happier today than most other days, but the smile on her face wasn't really all the way up, which Judith seemed to notice as they spoke. Carly could see that she was concerned, because it shone right through her warm brown eyes.

"Look Carly-"

"_No._" Carly cut her off, and looked her straight in the eye. "Do _not_ ask me how I am."

Judith sighed. "I wasn't going to. I know a lot of people must have asked you that." she held a short pause. "I was going to ask you if you'd talked to Sam since she left?"

Carly didn't need to answer. Apparently the way she shifted in her chair and how her eyes were focused on the plain, boring café table were enough an answer to Judith.

"She broke it off with Sabine." Judith told her, and this caught Carly's attention. At least her heart seemed to beat faster and she looked up. "When she moved in with Melanie again, she told Sabine that it had to be over. And – and Sabine's a good person, she completely understood that there was just something between you two. And I know it was stupid of Sam to get with her when there was something there all along, but... but Carly – don't you think that you ought to talk to Sam?"

Carly traced the end of the table with her finger and pondered about what to say for a few seconds. "I... I don't know." she ended up saying, very honestly. "It's not just the thing with her and Sabine, it's – it's everything, it's the way she talks to people, the way she has to get in a fight with the biggest dude in the club, the way she burps at the table and how she's so completely disgusting... I just don't think we're a good match."

"Well..." Judith trailed off, shrugging her shoulders lightly. "From what I've heard, you weren't even gay when she showed up again. And now you're talking like it could be a possibility if Sam wasn't … Sam." she chuckled lightly. "Which doesn't make sense at all, because the reason you love Sam, those are the things you just mentioned, isn't it?"

_It is... it totally is. I love her, but I can't stand her. It's useless. _"I guess so."

Judith reached a hand across the table and kindly took Carly's. "See how much a person can change? You guys are the perfect match, you just need to realize that – that everything in life is not perfect and that you need to embrace your gayness _and_ your differences."

Carly bit her lip in thought. "She really broke it off with Sabine?"

A smile came upon the black beauty's face. "She really did."

_She really did... I'm just not sure – is it too late? _

**I've Got All These Questions and None of the Answers – What Happened to Happy and Our Ever After? **

"Is there something you wanna say to me, Carly?" Spencer questioned, pushing his too-long hair behind his ears and slurping his hot chocolate.

Carly made a face at him and took a long sip of her white mocha. "Is there something you wanna say to me, Spencer?" she fired right back, and mentally added, _Maybe an 'I'm sorry for getting Freddie to cancel the show'? That would be good. Or just – an 'I'm sorry' would do it, really. _

Spencer seemed to think about it for a few seconds. "Oh. I do! Actually. I do!" he smiled warmly at her. "The doctor said that Monica could have her baby any day now. I'm gonna be a father soon."

_I don't care about your baby. It's not my baby. _"That's not it, Spence."

"Oh."

She raised an eyebrow and gave him another look. "That's good about Monica, though. She must be thrilled to be loosing that belly soon, huh."

"Yeah, it's gigantic!" Spencer laughed, slurping his hot chocolate for every last drop in the cup. He placed his cup down then and gave her a sad smile. "You seem to have changed lately, Carls."

She sat up straight with as much poise as possible. "Well, loosing their job will do that to some people."

"I'm not talking about the past two days." Spencer quickly clarified and reached a hand across the table to grasp Carly's before she even had time to think about moving it away. "I'm talking about the last two weeks, Carly." he continued, his voice suddenly more serious than it had been in years, and much more caring. "You've changed."

She snorted. "No I haven't."

He raised an eyebrow. "Since Sam left you. You've changed."

"Two things." she said, holding up two fingers just to get her point across. "First off, Sam did not leave me. I kicked her out. And you're making it sound like we were dating." _Which maybe... possibly... wouldn't be... that bad? _"And second off, no I haven't. I have not changed."

He sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair, his eyes now roaming her face for anything. "You won't admit it to yourself, that's stupid, but everyone else can see it. You like her, that's OK, we don't judge, we want you to be happy. You will be with her. Because you know what, Carls?" he offered her a warm smile, that brotherly smile of his which was only reserved for her. "She makes you happy."

He had whispered the last part and Carly wasn't sure if it was to get a point across of if he was just being Spencer. Her left hand found the end of her ponytail and she played with the worn tips. She didn't know what to say to him, so she decided to not say anything at all.

"She compliments you." Spencer said then, taking her silence as a cue for another speech of his. "You two compliment each other. When you two are together, you become less up-tight, and Sam... Sam becomes more considerate and less disgusting. Which is a very good thing. You're good for each other."

_We are, aren't we? We're really... good for each other.

* * *

_

_There you go, another chapter done! ;) Thank you so much for the amazing reviews I received for the last chapter, please keep them coming, because as far as I can count in my notes, the story is ending sooner than I thought. One more chapter will do it, folks! I hope that's all good with you? :) _

_Another note about some of the lyrics in this chapter – two of the titles are from a song called 'It's Useless' – it's by a Danish country group called The Fireflies. They placed fourth in this year's x-factor. I normally don't like or watch these things, because I believe they don't know good music, but The Fireflies really caught my heart after seeing a performance of them on Youtube. After that I was rooting for them all the way, and even though they didn't win, they've already released this single and their CD will be coming later in the year. Just thought I'd give you some background info in case you were wondering about the lyrics. _

_**Download; **I don't own any of the lyrics or iCarly. _


	8. Part Eight

**I Just Called to Say "..." And I Mean it From the Bottom of My Heart. **

"Hello?"

"Hi- is, hello-?"

"Is somebody there?"

"Hi. Sam – is that you?"

"Carly? Carly, no, it's Melanie."

"Oh." Carly paused and clutched her cell tighter to her cheek. She had called to talk to Sam, but she had no idea what she was going to say to her. And she hadn't really taken into account what she was going to say if someone else picked up the phone. Which, right now, she regretted.

Melanie made a funny sound at the other end of the line. "Carls? It is you, is it not?"

Carly breathed out heavily. "Hi Mel. It's me."

"It's so good to hear from you!" Melanie replied on the other end, truly sounding very excited. "I know it's been a while since we spoke, but I really wanted to catch up.. you know how everything is, husband, baby, house, work... it's just been crazy for me these past few months."

Carly smiled into the phone and murmured, "It's okay. I didn't expect you to want to talk to me, not after what happened with me and..."

"_Sam._"

"Yeah..."

Melanie cleared her throat to get pass the obvious awkwardness in their phone call. "So? How have you been lately? I heard about the show."

Carly didn't want to talk about the show. She didn't really want to talk about Melanie's family either and how busy she was. All she wanted was to talk to Sam, get her on the phone, just so she could hear for herself that she was alive. But she was trying this new thing lately. She was going to be patient and let other people catch a break. "I'm okay. It sucks that it's over. But I'm okay."

Melanie chuckled. "Good to know. I knew you'd be, though. You always pull through."

"Thanks."

"I – I bet you didn't call to talk to me, did you?" Melanie questioned then, her voice a bit hesitant, because now they were moving onto that touchy subject that would rather be avoided. But they had to mention her at some point.

Carly bit her lip and fumbled with her cell to get it to her other cheek. "Can I talk to her?" she softly whispered, not sure if it was even okay for her to ask that question, if she was even allowed to hope for a chance to be listened to.

There was a silence on the other end, and Carly held back her breath. She had a feeling where this was going. Melanie was hesitating, hesitating! That was never a good thing in cases like these.

"Carly, I'm sorry, but-"

She cut her off, "She doesn't wanna talk to me?"

"Aaaarh..." the was a brief pause. "No not exactly."

"Then what exactly?"

"Okay, okay." Melanie whispered, clearly feeling awkward being caught in the middle of all of this. "Okay. She doesn't wanna talk to you. But Carly, she's-"

Carly had to hold back a groan or a soft cry of some sort, because she'd been expecting this, but had hoped she'd be wrong. "I hurt her, I know I hurt her. Don't need to cut it out for me."

"Yeah Carly," Melanie said, suddenly sounding much more serious with a soft hint of anger. "you did hurt her. Which she didn't deserve, because she did nothing but good things for you. And she doesn't wanna talk to you, because she's trying to move on again. I'll give you this though. She did listen to your show. _Every night._"

A flicker of hope erupted in the pit of Carly's stomach at the sound of those words. That she listened to _Carly Says_ was a good thing. It meant that she wasn't completely appalled by her, that there was still something in her pulling her towards Carly herself. It was nice and comforting to hear that. "She – she did?"

Melanie heaved out heavily. "She did. She misses you Carly. But she needs to let go."

Letting the phone drop from her ear, Carly closed it with a smack and fell onto her bed.

**For So Long I Was Out in the Cold and I Taught Myself to Believe Every Story I Told. It Was Fun Hanging Onto the Moon, Heading Into the Sun. But It's Been too Long. Now I Wanna Come Home. **

The happiness was evident in his voice when he came sprinting into the waiting hall. "CARLYYYY? CARLIIIIIIIIE!"

She stood up from the sofa and gave him a funny look. "Good news, I reckon?" she questioned. Dug her hands into her baggy sweatpants and whipped from one foot to another.

"Carly, Carly!" Spencer said, breathing out heavily. His face was red from excitement and Carly knew why. "We have son! I'm _a father!_"

A huge smile appeared on Carly's own face when she jumped forward and gave her brother a bone crushing hug. She couldn't believe it; he was a father, Monica was a mother and she – she was an aunt. "I'm so happy for you, Spence!" she whispered into his neck, kissing his cheek. And for once, she really was. There was no feeling in the pit of her stomach telling her she needed to lie and pretend to be happy for them. There was no need to fight the disappointing fact that Spencer had a family, and she didn't. Because she wasn't disappointed.

There were other things in her life now that prevented her from wanting what they had. She was pretty sure she'd never get to this place in her life, not like this. And she wasn't sad, she wasn't jealous. All she wanted was someone to love, which she already had.

Spencer spun her around in a little circle before he put her to the floor again. "Let's go meet him, shall we?" he questioned, fancily holding out an arm for Carly, so she could hook hers through his.

She drew in a breath. "Are you sure? I mean – I completely understand if you guys want to be alone now. Family moment."

He bowed. "It's not a family moment if the child doesn't have his godmother, is it?" Spencer replied with that glint in his eye. And for a second there, Carly thought it was the happiest she'd ever been.

With a light squeal, she pulled Spencer towards the room where her sister-in-law and, most importantly, her godson were waiting.

**What If We Were Meant to Be Together? What If You Were Meant to Be the One? And I Could Call it Many Names, but It's Myself I Need to Blame, If I Don't Know, I'm Right Next to the Right One! **

Burning her hand on the stove, Carly threw her frying pan into the sink and cursed. "Goddamnit!" she yelped, rushing into the bathroom to get her hand into some water. On the way she stubbed her toe on the door frame.

Biting her lip she turned on the water and looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Small tears, of anger – and pain – were in the corners of her eyes and she couldn't recognize herself for a minute there. "What's this?" she whispered, completely stunned with her own reflection.

_What am I doing? Why am I like this? I – I – I'm not myself, am I? _

She turned off the water and dried her hand off in the towel hanging on the wall. She was completely confused. Swallowing loudly, she sat on the closed toilet lid. "Why did you leave me again, Sam?" she whispered, before she buried her head in her hands and groaned loudly.

_Why the crap did you do this to me, why? I never needed anyone, why do you always screw me up like this? And then you just fucking go again! Leaving me here! _

Carly couldn't help herself. The pain in her stomach, the aches that seemed to clutch her entire inside, were too much. She slid off of the toilet and leaned herself against the wall. Safely on the floor, she let herself cry.

**In the End You've Got a Friend for Lifetime, Hmm-mm, Truly There to Truly Care for You. **

"Carly, for Christ's sake, why don't you go over there and talk to her?" Freddie exclaimed as he entered her apartment, and found her lying on the couch, in an old t-shirt and her panties. She was flipping through the TV, not being very Carly-like.

She made a face in his direction and muted the TV with a flick of her finger. "She doesn't wanna talk to me, Freddie, that's why."

He stopped directly in front of the TV and made the posture she so usually did; both hands on hips. "Of course she wanna talk to you! She's just being Sam, getting you what you want, because she thinks you don't want her!"

Carly ignored his posture and pretended no one was in the way of her view. "Well. I'm not sure if I want her."

Freddie turned around and cut the TV off on the wall. "Carly." he firmly said. He took a step closer and sat down in front of her. "Everything's coming together for Spencer, even for me. You just need to make it come together for you as well. Keep trying until she talks to you. You both deserve happiness. You deserve each other. And you _want _each other." he paused. "How hard can it be?"

"_Very_."

"Well," he continued and pulled her up, so she at least was sitting on the couch. "you need to make it easy then. You can't just lie here until you die. You don't have a real job now because _Carly Says _is a downhill spiral. Soon you can't keep living here. I've found myself another job at the radio station. You can do whatever you wanna do. But please, the most important thing should be Sam right now."

"What is it that you don't get, Freddie?" Carly snapped then, glaring straight at him. "She's not into me and the life that I lead. I can't stand the way she lives! We're just not a good match, OK?"

Freddie pushed her straight into the couch again. "Keep telling yourself that, Carls!" he fired back at her, determination written all over his face. "Because I know for a fact that you two would be perfect together! And you want her, I know you do, because you love her."

"Yes, I love her." Carly said to him then in a calm voice. "But I'm not sure if I'm _in love_ with her. Maybe I just love her like a friend?"

Freddie shook his head in disbelief and turned away from her. "Call me when you've admitted to yourself that you love her. Maybe then I'll consider helping you get her back."

And then he left.

**I Could Hide a Million Years and Try to Believe That Any Time the Girl in Mind Will Come and Rescue Me... **

_Do I really? Do I want her back? I do. I do love her... _

Carly groaned and rolled over in her bed so she was lying with her head over the edge, dangling a few inches over the floor. She was confused like hell. Did she want to try and get Sam back? For some reason Freddie's words had really struck her. There were a few things that he said, which really made sense to her. Some of it was what concerned her. She didn't want to settle for second best again, ever. It would never work out.

_And there's only one person who's not second best to me. _Carly thought to herself in a firm voice.

But Sam? Really? There were so many things wrong with that picture. Not only was Sam everything she despised regarding good behaviour (or lack thereof), but Sam was also the person who'd been in jail, who did whatever she thought fitting, and Sam was... Sam was a _girl._

"Which would make me a..." _lesbian. _She didn't even dare say it aloud. There was something about that word that scared her. And the thought of her even associated with it, freaked her out even more. Was it possible that maybe, perhaps, she could be a – a – a "Lesbian?"

_There. I said it. _"Am I a lesbian?" she swallowed loudly. _I think I am. _"Really?" _Yes. _

She breathed out and turned over so she could get off the bed. "Well now I've been talking to myself, and if I can do that, I can admit that I am a lesbian." she swallowed loudly.

_What do I do then to get her back? _

**She's a Woman on a Mission, Nothing Can Stop Her, Whatever It Takes, She Will Do What She Gotta Do! **

Franticly she handed out her quickly home-made flyers to everyone she passed on the street. "There. Here you go." she said, literally pushing papers into the hands of people, and not caring that she dropped half of them on the street in her tracks. "_Carly Says_ tonight. Spread the word please. I'm Carly Shay."

She was determined to make everyone know that there would be an episode of _Carly Says _tonight at their regular platform. She wanted to make sure that Sam heard of it somehow. She had big plans, and she wanted to make sure that none of them got screwed up.

"Special edition of my show tonight. I'm Carly Shay of _Carly Says_." she told an old married couple. "Tell everyone you know, will ya'? It's important."

She smiled to herself and jumped onto a bench in the park. "_Carly Says_ tonight!" she practically screamed out and with a funny jump, dropped all the flyers into the air.

With a strange feeling of satisfaction in the pit of her stomach, she watched them fly through the trees and onto the streets outside the park. They twisted and turned as they happily set off on their special mission.

She had a good feeling about this, she really did.

_**CARLY SAYS. **_

_Carly: Hello everyone and welcome to this very special edition of Carly Says! I hope I reached all my regular listeners, because the first thing I'd like to do is that I'd like to apologise. I know that the show was awful for a while there, and it's all my fault. I wasn't feeling particularly good because the person I care for the most in this entire world had just left me in a slump. So I'm sorry. _

_Now that I've got you here tonight, I think it's safe to say that this will be the last you'll ever hear from me. Well, maybe if I'm lucky enough to get another job you can catch me there, but this truly is the last you'll ever hear of Carly Says. I've enjoyed these last years immensely and I hope you have too. I've come to realize something though, that I should have a long time ago. This might come as a shocker to some of my regular listeners, but really, truly, nobody's perfect. This I learned from one of my closest friends, who once quoted an old Hannah Montana song to me. You know, that show with the regular school girl who secretly was a popstar as well? Yeah. She had a song called _Nobody's Perfect, _and that really is true, guys! No one's perfect. Not even me. _

_So I'd like to apologise for pretending I was. Not even on air was I perfect. Who can tell me how many times I mentioned my brother Spencer on air? That's not good behaviour at all to do that, that's pressuring people to buy something, and though his artwork truly is amazing, I apologise for those commercials as well. And I'd- oh. We have a caller on line. I wasn't really thinking there'd be any callers tonight, but let's hear it! _

_Hello, who's this? _

_TJ: Hi, this is TJ. _

_Carly: TJ? Is that your name? _

_TJ: Yeah, my name's TJ._

_Carly: But those are just initials, how can they be your name? Aren't they short for something? _

_TJ: No. It's just TJ. _

_Carly: Well okay! Hi TJ. You called me very surprisingly tonight. Did you have something on your mind? _

_TJ: I'd just like to say, and I think I speak for all your listeners when I do this, that we appreciate how you've entertained us these past years. And though your morals may have been higher than most other people's, you really are onto something. You might have gone to the extreme, but the foundation is right. _

_Carly: Really? You don't have to humour me, TJ. I'm quitting tonight. No chance turning back. _

_TJ: I am not humouring you, Carly! I truly mean it. All your ideas are right. If people do stop littering, it will make the world a better place. If they don't take your parking spot right in front of you, the world will be better. It's all the small little things that make this world such an ugly place to live in! All that anger you have inside of you, it's good. You just – you just didn't know what to do with it. Which is OK, because I have no idea how to change the world either. _

_Carly: Oh, you're so sweet TJ. Thank you very much, you really made me feel a bit better about myself there. _

_TJ: You're welcome, Carly. I'm such a huge fan of yours. I used to watch iCarly, and let me just tell you – I really hope that, that Sam will come back to you. You two deserve each other. _

_Carly: ...what? _

_TJ: SAM! Wasn't Sam the one who left you? _

_Carly: ...she was. How – how did you know? _

_TJ: You two were always perfect together. And you've been talking about nothing but her for a long time. She really gets your blood going, huh? _

_Carly: She really does. _

_TJ: I hope she's listening to this. _

_Carly: So do I, TJ, so do I... _

_TJ: Well, I'll hang up now and let you continue with what you were doing before. _

_Carly: Thank you. And take care! _

_TJ: You too. _

_Carly: That was TJ everybody! A man with a purpose! No wonder his name is TJ. So anyway, I was in the middle of apologising before. I would just like to say I'm sorry for everyone I've hurt in the past, for people I've made fun of, for things I've tried to change on other people's expenses... It's just not right, not at all when I – myself – was not perfect either. But let me tell you something, I really learned something these past few months, even if it cost me my job. I just got a nephew the other day and he was the cutest thing. I wasn't the least bit jealous when I held him in my arms and when Freddie came to see me, I didn't even pretend that I was OK, because I've realize that it's sometimes OK, not to be OK. _

_Anyway. That was pretty much all I had to say tonight. So with this being the end of Carly Says, I will end it with a song that goes from my heart and out to everybody. I just hope that you will all take it to heart and think more about the lyrics. I know I did. And no, it's not Hannah Montana, it's something else. So, I thank you deeply, from the bottom of my heart, for these amazing years, and I hope all of you will do your best to make this world a better place from now on. This is Tim Christensen with _Right Next to the Right One_. Enjoy everybody! _

**'Cause You're the Fire, You're the One, but You'll Never See the Sun if You Don't Know, You're Right Next to the Right One. **

Turning off the light in the building, being the only who'd been at work at that time of night, Carly rushed through the big hall, her heels clicking against the tiles. It had been some show tonight, but she felt like she'd done the right thing. She'd apologised, which had lifted a huge weight off of her shoulders. And though it was the last show, she felt a relief. That TJ person had really made her think about a thing or two. And mostly, she felt good that she'd made it clear to everybody, that even she wasn't perfect.

And that song.. she was so happy that she'd finished with that song.

When she stepped onto the street outside, the cold night air hit her face and cooled her heated skin. She'd been furiously hot inside, but now she just needed a slow walk home and then a bath and then her bed. She didn't know what she expected to come out of tonight, but at least she knew she had closure. Locking the building behind her, she knew she'd have to come back at some point for all her things and leave the key, but at least it was goodbye for now.

She whipped around on her feet and gathered her purse onto her shoulder, but stopped before she managed to take another step. Right there, on the other side of the street, sat a lonely figure on a staircase with a smile on her face.

With her heart beating in her chest, Carly crossed the street and stopped in front of her. "What are you doing here?"

Sam stood up and made a funny face. "I don't know, really." she commented.

Carly gave a short nod. "Oh... okay." _Was it foolish of me to think she'd come for me? _

"I heard your show tonight." Sam said then, a small smile on her face. "That was some finish."

"I needed closure." Carly replied.

Sam cleared her throat. "It was a good song."

A hope aspired in Carly's chest again. "Yeah?

"Yeah." Sam confirmed. She then softly reached a hand out and grabbed Carly's free one. "Do you mean it? Am I the right one?"

Carly could feel her throat tighten, because now was the moment. She couldn't blow it, not again. "I think so, yeah. Even if we're so different, it's crazy. But I'll try to be better. I promise." she quickly rambled off. She really would try to be better. There was no use falling into old habits, not when it meant losing those she cared for.

Sam's face lit up. "Are you kiddin' me? Being different is part of the fun." she chuckled.

"But can you forgive me?" Carly asked her, daring to stroke her fingers against Sam's as they held onto each other on the cold, chilly street, where cars were parked and trash cans were spilling garbage onto the pavement.

Sam bit her lip. "If you can ignore what other people say." she whispered, a slight hope flaming in her beautiful eyes, so almost hidden beneath her massive bangs of hair.

"If you can give up other women and dating." Carly added. Just for good measure.

The blonde confirmed, "And if you'll be okay with the fact that you're a lesbian and not try to deny it."

Carly chuckled. Happiness burst through her every fibre and she thought that this was the happiest someone could be. Ever. "If I can kiss you right now and call you my girlfriend."

"Kiss me"

And she did.

* * *

_Thank you so much for tuning into this last chapter of iSay! I hope you enjoyed it, and furthermore, I hope you enjoyed the entire story! I really enjoyed writing it, because it was a bit different and challenging for me to write. It's been a wonderful journey though and I thank you all for your support, couldn't have done it without you. _

_Please leave me a comment with your thoughts. It's greatly appreciated. _

_The main song in this chapter was, of course, 'Right Next to the Right One' which is a truly wonderful song. It's just so warm, yet heartbreaking at the same time because of the story. _

_**Disclaimer; **I don't own any of the lyrics or iCarly. _


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